


Stranded

by kittenmittens, Your_Bones



Category: Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M, Series Finale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2018-12-13 23:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11770269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittenmittens/pseuds/kittenmittens, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Your_Bones/pseuds/Your_Bones
Summary: Penn was completely fine with taking one for the team and getting himself stuck on The Most Dangerous World Imaginable. Honest! Well, hewas... until Rippen ended up coming along for the ride.





	1. Chapter 1

Everybody's completely silent. They're all just staring at the MUT projector. Penn  _swears_  he can see a bunch of big, circular shapes starting to appear, almost like pieces of the void Rippen tried to trap him in―oh, nope. Wait. That's not his imagination; that's really happening. The fabric of space and time is actually ripping apart before their eyes. It might be cool if it weren't, y'know...

 

Terrifying.

 

Finally, Phyllis breaks the silence. "Phyllis has run calculations, and... " Feels like it takes a year for her to finish her sentence, mostly because Penn's already got a terrible feeling about where it's going. "Only way to save multiverse is for someone to go in and close portal from other side."

 

Penn swallows, turning to gawk up at her in horror.

 

"We'll go." His parents say it together.

 

No.  _No way_.

 

"What?  _NO!"_  Penn rushes over to his parents. "You just came back!"

 

Dad puts a hand on his shoulder. "Son, we're the only ones who've done it before."

 

Mom reaches out and cups his cheek. "Being away from you breaks our hearts... " She watches him sadly for a second, then gets this sudden, determined look on her face. "But knowing you'll be okay is all we need to be happy."

 

Penn turns back towards the portal, mumbling softly. "It's not  _fair_."

 

They both pull him into a tight hug, and dad mutters, "It's the only way."

 

Penn pulls away, " _No_ , it's―"

 

"No, it's―"

 

He blinks, glancing over at Rippen. Did he just... "Did you... Did you just say something?"

 

Rippen's eyes dart to one side, like he's not sure Penn's really talking to him. "What? No. Er, no." He gives Penn one of his prissy little hand waves. "Carry on."

 

Penn steps back, looking around at everyone. "It's not the only way." His parents have suffered enough. They did more for all the people in this room than Penn's done for anybody since he became a hero. But maybe now's his chance to make it up to them. Although, he's gotta be honest. "This is gonna suck." Lunging forward, he yanks Amber's slingshot out of her hand and sprints back towards the transport pad. He hocks one cactus ball towards the control panel, letting out surprised noise when he actually manages to hit the anti-grav switch in one shot.

 

"Penn!" Mom screams, watching him in disbelief. "What are you  _doing!?"_

 

"I'll be okay, mom!" He takes aim again. "Phyllis... was a pretty good teacher! Well..." He makes a so-so gesture. "Not great. Kind of... Kind of heartless at times. Probably could've been better." Shaking his head, he tells himself to hurry up. "But that's not the point!" He smiles down and everyone, and tries not to make this too, uh...  _heart-wrenching_. "Besides! I'm still a Zero. I can take care of myself!"

 

"No, you can't!" Sashi drags her fingernails down her cheeks, boggling up at him in panic. "You  _can't_  take care of yourself! That's the whole reason you have a sidekick!"

 

"Bad call, dude!" Okay, now Boone's racing towards the control panel, with Phyllis. And... now they're stuck together on the steps, wedged against each other by the railing. Perfect! Well, not perfect, but―ugh! It's not exactly hurting this last minute plan he's got going.

 

"All right. Kinda... ruining the moment, but hey! Making things anti-climactic just means this'll be less traumatic for everybody!" He looks down at his parents again, and winces at their expressions. "... Or not." But he's still made up his mind! "I love you, guys. You'll thank me for this lat―" Pulling his arm back, he sends the second cactus ball flying, ricocheting it off the wall and hitting the directional lever with... a  _lot_  more force than Penn's used to. Instead of gently drifting into The Most Dangerous World Imaginable, he sort of gets flung into it like a wet sack of potatoes. Also, there's a lot more screaming. He's screaming, his parents are, so is Phyllis, and Boone... Even someone who sounds suspiciously like Rippen is shouting extra loud. Not that he has time to focus on that, even though Rippen getting really upset is one of Penn's all-time favorite topics. (Boone even dedicated four pages in his scrapbook to that!)

 

The fun's over pretty fast, though. He hits the ground hard, rolling a few times and wincing as he shakily gets to his feet. Sprinting over to the bomb, he looks down at his suit―he thinks he saw a grappling hook button around here somewhere–Ah! There it is. Pressing it, he jumps a little as a three-pronged hook pops out of a panel near his wrist. Lifting his arm, he lines it up, then lets it fly, looping the rope around one of the sensors at the top of the bomb. After giving it a tug to make sure it's taut, Penn quickly hikes up the side of the thing, only slipping a couple times before he gets to the top. Pulling himself up to the control panel, he reaches out, finger hovering over the activation button as he takes a deep breath. His hand starts to drop, but then he freezes. Slowly, he lifts his head, and gets this weird feeling like someone just punched him in the stomach.

 

He can see everybody watching him from the other side. His mom, his dad, Sashi, Boone... Even Larry, and a bunch of people from the other dimensions. Rippen's gone, but Penn's not really surprised. Not exactly un-Rippen-like to flee the scene. Phyllis isn't looking, but she's frantically pressing buttons, and it hits him that he's not gonna have much time before she finds a way to bring him back. Maybe at the cost of the whole universe.

 

"Okay, Penn," he mutters. "It's now or never."

 

He presses the button.

 

And waits.

 

And... waits a little longer, pressing it a bunch more times.

 

Groaning, he rakes his hand through his hair. "Seriously?! I pull what's  _probably_  the multiverse's most heroic sacrifice, and the bomb doesn't even go off? Typical." He sighs, balancing there and feeling like a complete idiot. "I dunno, maybe I should... hot wire it? Is that a thing? Can you hot wire bombs?" He buries his face in his hands. "Oh, man. It's gonna be so  _awkward_  when Phyllis zaps me ba―"

 

Just like that, Penn's blown across the landscape. Again, this time even more painfully. Not sure what happened for a second, he just lies on the ground, ears ringing, whole body aching, and head spinning like when he was a kid and he used to let Boone try to push him all the way around on the swingset. Well, before he learned his lesson, anyway. Boone and _restraint?_  Yeah, not exactly well acquainted.

 

His arms are shaking so bad, he can't actually push himself off the ground at first. Still sort of crouched there, he finally lifts his head, then stares. There's no sign of the portal, and all that's left of the bomb is a whole bunch of debris and a... Phyllis shaped crater in the ground. Huh. That's one way to leave your mark, he guesses. Swallowing, Penn builds up his strength a little before giving anoter shove, finally getting off the gravel and onto his feet. "Whoa!" He wobbles, and for a second, he's positive he's gonna fall, but he doesn't. Turning in a slow circle, he looks at the orangey-red sky, at the craters, and at the... vaguely Utah-esque landscape. Seriously, if Utah had a bunch of murderous aliens and flaming cyborgs, it'd be a dead ringer. Point is, all he sees is The Most Dangerous World Imaginable. There isn't any sign of a portal, or universe distortion, and even though the monsters seemed to have all bailed from this spot, Penn's definitely  _here_.

 

"I did it," he whispers.

 

For a while, he just stands there, feeling half proud, half... nauseated. And then he decides to give himself the kick in the pants he obviously needs, and makes himself start walking. "Well! Better get a move on before I'm filled with a crushing sense of regret!" He laughs weakly. "Heh! That came out...  _dark_ ." He trudges towards a cliff that looks sort of familiar, like something he saw in a MUHU call once. Maybe he'll find his parents' bone house somewhere around here. "Least nobody's around to hear me sounding like a complete nutso. Talking to myself. Heh. I mean, who  _does_  that? You'd have to be  _crazy_... " He steps carefully over a giant chunk of metal with a couple of sparking wires, grimacing. "Egh."

 

See? He doesn't like the look of that thing. But he ends up staring back at it a second too long, and soon he's tripping over the next pile of junk. "GAH!"

 

Groaning, he rolls away from it, clutching his bruised knee as the piece of metal groans, too.

 

Wait.

 

"Larry, I've told you before, it is a  _federal offense_  to―" Penn watches in horror as Rippen sits up, or, more accurately, rises from the crypt like the alien vampire he is. "To... " Rippen trails off, glancing around in confusion. "H-Hold on a tick. Where am I?"

 

"SERIOUSLY?" Penn's voice cracks as it hits him. He's stuck here, on The Most Dangerous World Imaginable...  _with Rippen._ "Nope. Not doing this." Leaping to his feet, he tears across the rocky landscape, then starts rummaging through the biggest pile of bomb pieces he can find, trying to unearth something,  _anything_... "Ah-ha!" Some kind of... switch... majigger? If it blew up the space-time rip, it can un-blow it up! It has to! He flicks it up and down, staring up at the sky, hoping some kind of portal will magically reappear. "Please! C-Come on!" He groans, clutching the switch tighter. "I changed my mind!"

 

_"ZERO!"_

 

Penn winces. He doesn't have to look over there, right? If he just pretends he can't hear Rippen, maybe he'll just... give up and go away! Like a bear! Well, a bear that may or may not eat people, and probably has a vintage collection of floral teapots. Swallowing, he turns around, dropping the switch and clasping his hands together. "Sooooo. Rippen. You're... probably confused. About... why you're here. Which is good, because I'm confused about that, too!"

 

Rippen gets to his feet and stomps over to Penn. And Penn doesn't think ‘afraid’ and ‘Rippen’ are two words that can be used in the same sentence―well, unless he's saying something like "I am afraid of Rippen" to get Boone to squirt milk out of his nose. But honestly? For the first time, probably ever, Rippen in all his moldy-skinned, yellow-toothed, zebra-toupeed glory, actually looks sort of intimidating. But only sort of!

 

"Do you realize what you've done!?" He towers over Penn, eyes bugging out of his head even more than usual. "This isn't going to end like one of your childish little pranks!" He takes on a flowery, high-pitched voice, and  _whoa_ , that is  _so_  not even close to what Penn sounds like! It's all girly, and British, and...  _blegh._ "Ooh, Rippen! I've put mayonnaise in your coffee again! Jolly good humor, isn't it? Oh, and now I've drawn a hideous charicature of you and Larry exchanging vows, and I've stuck it on some sort of... some of that dual-side sticky paper, and placed in on your chair so you'll walk around with it plastered against your rear for the remainder of the day!"

 

"Oh, man!" Penn laughs, wiping a tear away. "I forgot about that one!  _How_  could I forget? It was so perfect! And then Larry told you he wasn't ready for that kind of commitment―"

 

"SILENCE!" Rippen shouts, hunching down so suddenly Penn drops onto his back in surprise. "I've got news for you, boy. There will be consequences for this. It's life or death!" He gestures frantically around them. "The portal is closed! For good! And you've seen to it that there will be no way to open it again, which I would be perfectly fine with―What? Penn Zero, rotting away by himself in some tacky death world? I've had  _that_  fantasy more times than I can count!―but by including me, you've turned this into a nightmare."

 

Penn glances aside nervously. "... Yeah, we uh..." He sits up, rubbing at the back of his neck. "We're on the same page there. But, um... You get that I didn't do this on purpose, right? You and me, stuck together, the only two people on a planet... I think that's―what is it?―like, number three on my top ten worst torture scenarios?" Just under Phyllis showing him her makeup routine, which is just under....

 

Well, he doesn't talk about number one.

 

Shaking his head, he continues, "I don't even know how this happened!"

 

"That troll woman must have faulty MUT equipment." Rippen growls under his breath, straightening up so he can start dusting his armor off. Because that tooooootally matters right now. "That, and an idiot such as yourself operating the controls via―what was it?  _Sling-shot?_  Well, that certainly couldn't have helped matters. You caught my ankle in the anti-gravity beam and dragged me along with you on your foolish little hero's errand." Boy, the guy sure can talk, can't he? Just keeps going and going. "See where it's gotten you, Zero? A short life on a hideous planet with a man who loathes your entire being."

 

"Hey!" Penn grumbles, finally clambering back to his feet. "I thought you were supposed to start acting like less of a giant, whiny pile of boogers. Y'know, since I saved your life and all." He sighs. "Guess I was dumb for thinking that."

 

"Something we can both agree on," Rippen says. "And considering the uninhabitable state of this planet, and our likelihood of long term survival, I'd say that little life debt you forced on me earlier has been rendered null and void."

 

Penn swallows. "Uh... " What's he supposed to say? Does he really wanna argue with the guy? He pictures blackmailing Rippen over that life-debt, turning him into a live-in maid, and he has to gag. "Not really, since you didn't save _my_  life, but... "

 

Rippen scowls at him in disgust and Penn trails off, glancing away.

 

"Well, good day, Zero." Penn looks up in time to watch Rippen giving him the most sarcastic wave he's ever seen. "Since we've got an entire planet's terrain to work with, I see no reason why we must spend the remainder of our time alive  _near one another."_

 

Penn snorts defensively. "Uh,  _yeah_ . I work best when I'm  _not_  living near a cranky, old skunk-man who smells like stale cabbage.'"

 

Rippen growls again, then turns on his heel, stomping towards the horizon.  _A_  horizon, anyway. Penn never remembers seeing a sun on this planet. "I hope you enjoy making your pathetic jokes, since you'll be the only one left to listen to them."

 

"Oh, I  _do_ !" Penn huffs, clenching his hands into fists. "I  _loooooooove_  it! I could make these jokes all day!" He turns like he's talking to someone else. "Hey, Penn! Want to hear a joke about Rippen? Maybe something about how he smells like sulfur and misery?" He turns to face where he was just talking. "Why, yes, Penn. I would love to hear a joke about that! That is literally my  _favorite_  kind of joke!" He grins, side-stepping back again. "Mine too! Boy, it's great how much we have in common." Turning again, he says, "Sure is, buddy. Now let's laugh condescendingly." He takes a massive inhale, then barks in Rippen's direction. "Ha! Ha. Haha  _HA HA HA!"_

 

Rippen just keeps on walking. And walking. Seriously, what's wrong with him!? Even if he is still evil,  _apparently_ , did that year of rivalry mean nothing to him? "FINE! Get lost!" Swallowing, he shakes his head, turning on his heel and stomping away with his back to Rippen. "Whatever. This is still gonna be great! I get to live on this neat... firey...  _uninhabitable_  planet, all by myself. And  _maybe_  watch Rippen get his butt munched on by a giant, killer cactus." He's just gotta stay positive. Taking a deep breath, he marches forward.

 

And then starts screaming in terror a second later. "Oh  _NOOOOOWHYAMIFLYING?"_

 

His feet are off the ground! Why are his feet off the ground!? He glances at either of his arms, blood draining out of his face when he realizes he's got two huge, meaty bug claws wrapped around his upper arms. There's this deafening buzz, and it's then that Penn realizes he's gonna be monster mosquito chow if he doesn't do something soon. Kicking frantically, he tries to get his arms to bend enough to press a button on his suit― _any_  button―and maybe use that to get away.

 

"Almost... got it!" He strains as hard as he can, finger shaking as he brings it inches away from the button that'll activate his boot rockets. But just before he can hit it, he hears this nasty, wet  _squelch_ , and suddenly, he's falling. " _GAAAAAAAAH!"_

 

He hits the ground like a pile of bricks, groaning miserably. Every bone in his body feels like he just started recovering from one of Uncle Chuck's experimental breakfast buffets. It takes him a good thirty seconds to even lift his shaking head, looking up to see the mosquito's been impaled by a long, sharp piece of metal. And standing above that...

 

"... Rippen."

 

Rippen narrows his eyes. "There you go, boy. I've just destroyed the idea of me owing you  _anything_." He turns around again, footsteps crunching against the rock. "Consider my debt repaid."

 


	2. Chapter 2

Rippen can’t put space between himself and Zero fast enough. It’s one thing that he’s trapped in this miserable, barren dimension, but he doesn’t want the last conversation of his life to be something like “ooh, Rippen, I just can’t wait to get back to my perfect house, awesome family and my slow, annoying friends that don’t threaten my constant feeling of superiority.” That… got carried away a little, there, but it’s Zero. He’s doing Zero.

 

Shoulders squared and head held low, Rippen groans and stops mid-stride when he hears Zero’s obnoxious, crackly voice somewhere behind him.

 

“Wait! This is nuts! _You’re_ nuts, you know that, right?!” The boy picks himself up-- it’d be asking too much for him to be maimed by that fall, wouldn’t it?-- and jogs to catch up to Rippen. “You just skewered a giant bug! You, Rippen! Y-You did something almost… _possibly,_ under some circumstances... _cool!_ ”

 

Rippen doesn’t just ignore him, he makes it a _point_ to ignore him, scoffing irritably and keeping his back turned as he starts to pick through the wreckage. There’s got to be something useful here, or something that could make another weapon…

 

“So we’re just gonna ignore the fact that you, _Rippen,_ kinda held your own back there?” Zero starts doing that wild arm-flailing thing, like he can’t talk fast enough to articulate himself and has to bring his hands into the equation like a mental patient. “I-I mean, don’t get me wrong, I had that situation totally under control and all! I’m just surprised you didn’t wimp out and run. You know, like you always do.”

 

“I told you, that makes us even. Now I don’t have any illusion of owing you anything, and we can both go off and meet our makers in peace.” It’s not that Rippen plans on dying anytime soon, he just… has realistic expectations about his situation. He sighs, kneeling down to examine a long, sharp sliver of metal that might serve as a spear or javelin. Zero keeps talking, of course, but luckily Rippen’s a master at tuning things out. He’s listened to Larry’s “one time I found a dime, but I thought it was a penny” story at least fifty times now, there is _nothing_ Zero can do to get to him. Rolling his eyes, he works stubbornly on his crude, ramshackle weapon.

 

Suddenly, a horrific scream cuts through the quiet. Rippen spins around just in time to spot this winged, serpentine creature barrelling toward him at alarming speed. He begins to panic, scrambling to his feet to try and counter it, and right before it reaches him… A good-sized rock, around the size of a cantaloupe, crashes down on its head, pinning it to the ground and killing it.

 

“Whew! Haha, did you see that?” With a nauseating grin, Zero dusts his hands off, strolling over to Rippen’s side casually. “These things are suuuuper poisonous. Venomous? Which one is worse? It’s that one. Bites you once and you, heh, you kinda swell up like a _waterbed_. You know, before you die. The dying part’s probably worse.”

 

“...I could’ve handled it.” Rippen kicks the carcass for emphasis, reflexively flinching a tiny bit when it twitches.

 

“Oooh, yeah. Does whatever-species-you-are have eyes in the back of their heads, too? You immune to crazy, venomous alien reptiles?” The way he laughs is just… Well, Rippen always wants to bash Zero’s head against a wall, but that laugh definitely strengthens the desire. “But, uh… guess we’re not exactly even anymore, huh?” Zero checks his nails smugly. “Not that I’m keeping track or anything.”

 

“You…” Jabbing his finger in Zero’s chest, Rippen snarls. “Of all the insufferable, infuriating people to be trapped here with, why did it have to be _you_?!”

 

Wait. He freezes, dropping his makeshift spear in silence. That’s it! If Rippen got pulled in here by accident, who’s to say he’s the only one? What if there’s someone, (literally anyone,) other than Zero on this godforsaken rock?! Driven by that thought, Rippen starts digging more frantically, tossing jagged chunks of shrapnel aside as he goes. He hears Zero approaching him, but can’t be bothered to acknowledge his presence, instead focusing on overturning an especially heavy slab of metal and wiring.

 

“Ok, ok, totally going the opposite direction in a second, but first, uh… What’re you doing?” Just keeps talking, doesn’t he? No regard for whether or not anyone cares or pays attention.

 

“I’m looking for other victims of your recklessness. If I got dragged into this, maybe there’s someone else to suffer with me.” That’s entirely reasonable, right? If he perishes in this wasteland, it’s only natural to want to take somebody with him. “ _Anyone_ else.”

 

“What kind of jerk-- wait, anyone? _Anyone?_ Even Larry?” Zero’s sort of watching him work over his shoulder now, putting his hands on his knees and bending down childishly. After picturing his suggestion for a moment, spending his last few days in The Most Dangerous World Imaginable with Larry prattling on about stickers and alpacas and that thing he does with the golf carts painted like ladybugs…

 

Giving a visceral shudder, Rippen concludes. “...Alright, it’s about fifty-fifty. You’re both equally terrible.”

 

“Gee, thanks. So, uh, I’ll leave you to your… scrounging. Good luck with that.” Zero does that thing where he takes a few steps away, then waits, then takes a few more steps and so on; he’s clearly expecting Rippen to stop him, but Rippen’s not falling for it. “All by yourself. Going it alone in The Most Dangerous World Imaginable. Which I _happen_ to be an expert on.”

 

“Just go already!” Rippen’s tired of listening to him! He’s still holding onto hope that someone else survived the journey, even though so far all he’s found is more smoldering debris. Watching over his shoulder, Rippen makes sure Zero’s _gone_ before he carries on with his work. Surprisingly, he actually _does_ leave, though Rippen has a looming sense he didn’t go far. It’s a start, he supposes, and unlike Zero, he has the sense to try and scavenge every bit of this wreckage that might be useful to him.

 

If he’s going to perish out here, one way or another, Rippen wants to make sure he at least doesn’t go easily. He can fend for himself.

 

* * *

 

Alright, it may be a little harder than he thought it would be. Over the course of a few hours, Rippen has been burned, shot at, bitten and fallen down a rocky embankment into a pool of what he suspects was some sort of acid. He’s exhausted, beaten within an inch of his life, and then it dawns on him: if he’s been doing this badly, odds are, Zero is most likely long gone by this point. Honestly, it’s sort of frustrating! All this time, he’s been thinking of entertaining, creative ways to get rid of Zero, and then the environment goes and does it for him! Rippen’s not complaining, he’s glad he doesn’t have to deal with the brat, but the thought that he didn’t even get to see him go down is just… well, at least he can imagine it. It was probably ridiculous, something stupid like getting torn apart by trolls or swallowed up by a lava flow. The second one is Rippen’s favorite so far. He can’t help grinning a little picturing it, Zero trying to outrun the eruption and being buried alive just moments after--

 

“Oh, come on!” At the top of the shallow cliff, just a few feet from where Rippen fell, he catches an unmistakable smear of red hair. “What are you doing here?!” How much of that did he see? The embarrassing fall? The part where Rippen was afraid his armor had been soaked through, and he had to adjust his codpiece to… no, on second thought, he doesn’t want to think too hard about it.

 

“Don’t mind me!” Zero laughs, leaning on a rocky outcropping to try and look extra casual. “I’m just heading to-- uh, a place! Nondescript, totally uninteresting place.” Oh, well _that’s_ not suspicious. It’s hard to miss the way Zero fidgets and glances around uneasily, like he’s looking for an opening to run. Rippen clambers back up to the top of the ridge, looming over Zero in a blatantly threatening way.  

 

“What are you hiding?” It’s something good, Rippen can tell by the way the boy fidgets.

 

“Ooh, you got me. I’m hiding something. Better spill my whole life story now that _you_ caught on.” Zero makes a childish ‘heartfelt’ gesture, hands clasped, batting his eyelashes. “Your favorite hero was born on a rainy Tuesday…”

 

Tired, sore and covered in watered-down acid, Rippen has no patience for the boy’s schtick. He grabs Zero by the rim of his gaudy metal breastplate and yanks him forward violently, making him stumble as he tries to keep his feet underneath him.

 

“You know what I mean!” Glaring down at the boy as he tries to pull away, Rippen snarls. “You forget, Zero-- you don’t have the protection of polite society out here. There’s nothing to stop me from throttling you within an inch of your life.” They’ve fought before, sure, but those times Zero had the benefit of borrowing a body. As he is, he’s got no chance against Rippen in terms of brute strength!

 

“Hey! Sorry, pal, but that’s not happening.” Zero squirms pathetically for a moment, helpless against Rippen’s hold. He gets a surge of confidence, lifting Zero up until his feet can’t reach the ground anymore… And then all of the sudden, his head’s spinning, there’s this throbbing pain in his jaw, and did that little monster _actually_ just headbutt him?! “Boom!” The shock forces Rippen to drop him, clutching his face stupidly as Zero tears off over the top of the ridge. That insufferable brat! Rippen’s not letting him get away with this! He chases after Zero at full tilt, heedless of his cumbersome armor and nearly tripping over himself in his effort to keep Zero in sight. Maybe the boy’s faster in a dead sprint, but Rippen’s got stamina on his side.

 

“Oh man ohman I did _not_ think this through!” Scrambling over the nearest hill, Zero’s clearly trying to lose Rippen in the landscape. Rippen’s right behind him, keeping his pace and catching up near the bottom so he can grab and strike uselessly at Zero. From an outside perspective, this might look a little like some sort of infantile slap-fight, but Rippen knows that he’s really just wearing the brat down to ensure his victory. “Gahhh! Stop-- would you quit-- ow! Okay that time you kinda pulled my hair!”

 

At the top of the next hill, (which Rippen is only vaguely aware of, as focused as he is on trying to shove Zero off a cliff,) he finally sees what the boy was trying to hide from him. A ramshackle structure, dingy white against the endless red expanse of the sky, with spikes or pillars of black rock protruding from its dome-shaped roof. Shelter! Relative safety! Zero’s so clueless that he led Rippen right to it!

 

Sure, Zero tries to mislead him, taking a dramatic turn and feigning in another direction. Apparently his ego leads him to assume he’s _smarter_ than others, too. Rippen closes in on him, grabbing the boy clumsily by one of his pauldrons and pulling him off balance. Zero hits the ground with an effeminate squeak, and before he has the chance to retaliate, Rippen pins him with a foot on his chest.

 

“I’d say ‘nothing personal’, Zero, but we both know that’s not true. It’s very personal. I _personally_ don’t like you.” The simplest solution is usually the best, (Rippen learned that in the prehistoric dimension that didn’t appreciate his genius,) and he’s got no interest in prolonged interaction with Zero. He doesn’t plan on anything elaborate-- all he has to do is get Zero out of his way.

 

“Oh, it’s mutual, buddy. _More_ than mutual. That doesn’t even make sense and I stand by it!” Zero kicks and squirms, but he has no chance of overpowering Rippen. He takes a length of cable from the arm of his suit and lashes Zero crudely to a fallen boulder, binding his arms to his sides. The old ‘sand in the eyes’ trick is one of this brat’s favorites, after all.

 

“Clever!” Rippen laughs, a very obviously fake, condescending laugh. “Did you work hard on that banter, Zero?” After thinking about it for a moment, he elects not to make any crass gestures as he takes his leave. More classy that way, be the bigger man and all.

 

He abandons Zero while he’s still trapped, hiking uphill to the shanty alone. It’s a steep climb to get there, but when he reaches the top, (and is not winded at all, make no mistake, he could do that fifteen times in a row if he had to,) he realizes that the other side ends just a few paces from the edge of an enormous cliff. What sort of maniacs built this place?! On closer inspection, the entire shack is made of bones. A nice touch for details, Rippen thinks, but a little garish when there’s no variety to the decor. Everything is bones-- inside, the cutlery and the dishes are bones! It’s just _tacky_. But Rippen will soldier through it for survival. He can always redecorate when he’s not directly struggling for his life.

 

After making himself comfortable, removing some of his bulkier armor and dusting off the furniture with his hands, Rippen decides to use this opportunity to make a point. A point about how things are going to be for the rest of their time here, and the sooner Zero comprehends it, the better. He takes a seat, pours himself a glass of… some dubious-looking green liquid he won’t actually drink, and waits.

 

And waits.

 

Seriously, what’s taking so long? Rippen tied him to a rock, for God’s sake, it’s not like his legs are broken! Perhaps something out there ate him while he was incapacitated? That… is an oddly unsettling thought. Unsettling enough that Rippen eventually gets up to peer out the door, more for morbid curiosity than anything. He can just barely make out the spot where he left Zero, squinting at the coarse black rock, the frayed, discarded lengths of cable… _Eugh_ . Zero really _did_ get eaten. Why does that make Rippen feel-- well, not guilty, he likes to think he’s long outgrown the notion of remorse, but it just… doesn’t sit well with him.

 

Because he would’ve liked to do the killing himself, presumably. Letting nature do the deed for him is a little cowardly, even by his standards. That seems like the natural response to one’s enemy facing a sudden, unceremonious--

 

“Whew! Man, I was wondering how long it’d take you to notice.” Zero doesn’t even sound _winded_. Rippen spins around to face him, finding the boy by the window that overlooks the cliff. “I’ve been standing here for like, I dunno, ten minutes? Twenty minutes? Kinda wish I brought a watch. One of those little things you don’t think about when you go on a trip to an unstable nightmare dimension, but then you start missing it, like trail mix or--”

 

“No, no. I’ve had enough of you.” Rippen shakes his head, casually grabbing Zero’s arm and dragging him toward the door. “Get out.”

 

“Hey! You can’t kick me out! This is my parents’ place!” Zero’s rambling is like nails on a chalkboard to Rippen at this point. “That’s like… Like Sashi’s bloodthirsty trained squirrels! It’s just messed up!”

 

“Don’t care. Goodbye.” Even with Zero’s amiable attempt to bite his forearm, Rippen still manages to hurl him outside by the collar with little fuss. He slams the door, waits for the ceiling to stop raining bone fragments, and turns to get back to reorganizing. Maybe, with enough care, this place could work out well for him. (And if he’s feeling exceptionally generous, he’ll let Zero stick around and scavenge off his excess, like a raccoon. Probably not worth it, but it is an entertaining mental image.)

 

“Hey there, Ol’ Rip! Good to see ya again!” Zero’s halfway through the window, trying to kind of pull himself through and land on his hands. Grinding his teeth, Rippen plants a hand on the boy’s massive forehead and shoves him back outside. He shuts the window immediately, making sure to latch it this time so Zero can’t get back in. Come to think of it, the door ought to have some sort of deadbolt, right? Rippen takes a step forward to check, and there’s that voice again, this time on the other side of the single-room shack. “Woo, guess what? _Two windows!_ ”

 

“Get out!” Alright, Rippen’s losing his patience. He grabs Zero, much more clumsily this time, (little beast finally gets that bite in, _good for him_ ,) and stuffs him out the door in a bundle of flailing limbs and clanging armor.

 

Trying to act fast, Rippen bolts the door and hurriedly latches the other window shut. Holding the windowsill, which is mostly just a large femur, he breathes a sigh of relief.  Finally, some privacy. He wonders if the bedroll in the corner is sanitary enough to risk sleeping on. Probably not.

 

The window on the other side of the room rattles conspicuously, but Rippen just snorts to himself. “Good luck, Zero,” he mutters, returning to his clunky, unpleasant wooden armchair. He takes one of the books from the shelf and rifles through it casually, resting his head on his hand. “The Layman’s Guide to Advanced Pyrotechnics”. Yeah, that sounds about right.

 

Suddenly, the rattling noise turns into a wicked crack, and right on cue, Zero’s slithering back into the house again.

 

“I can do this all day, Rippy!” After landing more or less on his face, Zero springs to his feet again, smirking. “Literally nothing better to do!”

 

“You idiot! Why would you break the window!?” Rippen gapes, standing and stomping toward Zero threateningly.

 

“Hey, not my place, right?” Cheerfully strolling across the room, Zero adds, “why should I care?” He knocks over a hollowed-out skull “accidentally”, shattering it into pieces on the dirt floor. “Oops! Guess you didn’t need that!”

 

“Stop it!” Rippen tries to seize him again, but Zero’s ahead of him, grabbing a two-pronged metal spear from the rack on the wall and brandishing it menacingly. ...At least, he acts like he wants to do that, but he can’t really lift the weapon very high, so he mostly just scrapes it on the ground and points it in Rippen’s general direction. “You’ll ruin everything!”

 

“Oh no! Boy, I sure am glad this isn’t my house!” Struggling to hold the spear in one hand, Zero slaps a clay jar off the shelf and sending little scraps of dried meat everywhere when it breaks.

 

“What do you want?!” Rippen sputters angrily, reaching to try and wrench the spear away from Zero. The boy can’t possibly swing it, it’s not like it’s actually dangerous-- and it’s on his foot. His boot keeps the blade from actually piercing, thankfully, but it’s still _incredibly_ heavy. With an indignant yelp, Rippen yanks on his foot, his eyes screwing shut in pain.

 

“Gee, I dunno! What could somebody you just robbed _possibly_ be after?!” The sarcasm in Zero’s voice is so dense it’s sickening. “If only you had something I wanted!”

 

“Oh, so that’s it! If you can’t have it, nobody can!” They both keep shouting over each other for no real reason, but Rippen’s confident that he’s winning at it. “You’ll destroy the only shelter for who-knows how many miles, just to see me suffer, is that it?” Rippen seethes, his hands shaking with rage as he finally yanks his foot free of Zero’s spearhead.

 

“Yeah, pretty much! Look, I’m gonna do what I’ve gotta do, buddy. I just wanna get out of the open before the stars start horking up acid-- which is a _thing they can do here_ , by the way!” Zero babbles and gestures incoherently for a second, apparently straining to come up with words. “I can’t exactly throw you out. I mean, _ethically_ I could, no problem, but since you probably weigh, like, five hundred pounds…”

 

“Just get on with it.” Just because Zero’s a ninety-pound, birdlike scarecrow… no, no. Rippen’s not going to let it bother him. ...Any more than he’s already bothered by Zero’s existence in general, anyway.

 

“How about we do this thing--” Zero gasps, dropping the spear so he can put his hands on his face cartoonishly. “--this crazy, radical thing... They call it sharing.” He pronounces it “shah-ring”, as though he’s teaching a new word to cavemen. (Rippen knows he’s the one who taught the entire prehistoric world to call him “booger hulk”, even though he credits that decision to Boone.) “Now, I know this is a really hard concept for you, but bear with me. Two people… can use the same thing… _without_ killing each other! It’s mind-blowing, right? A-And trust me, it’s not my first choice. First choice would be me blackmailing your butt out of _my_ house, but since that’s not happening, this is the best deal you’re gonna get.”

 

“As much as I love the idea of being trapped in this hovel with you, you’ve got to run out of things to break eventually, and at that point--” Rippen flinches as Zero knocks over another jar, looking directly at him while he does so. “ _At that point_ , you’ll have no power over--” Zero interrupts him again by breaking a pot. When Rippen doesn’t immediately acknowledge him, he takes it a step further, throwing his weapon down on a shelf so that it half-collapses. “I didn’t like that thing anyway!” It clashed with the wall color! “You can’t just get your way by throwing a tan--” Rippen cringes when Zero starts tossing loose bones up at the chandelier, trying to dislodge it. “Come on! That’s the only piece holding this room together!” Zero looks straight at him and throws another skull. “FINE! You can stay! Just… keep out of my way, will you?!”

 

“Ooh, you mean you don’t wanna braid each other’s hair over tea?” Using a lighter stave from the wall racks, (the one he obviously should’ve grabbed in the first place,) Zero scratches a line in the dirt from the middle of the door to the rear wall of the shack. “There. You stay on your side, I stay on my side, nobody has to talk to anybody. Maybe we can put up a curtain!”

 

Rippen thinks for a moment, then sputters. “...How come you get the side with the bed?” He’s got all the good weapons, too! Look at that electrified… sword… thing! It’s clearly important, and Rippen wants it!

 

“You get plenty of cool stuff!” Zero gestures grandly at the neat stacks of assorted junk on Rippen’s side of the hut. “Look! You get my mom’s champagne glasses! You have _no idea_ how hard those are to get here. And there’s my dad’s wallet! Probably one of the fake ones, but those actually come in handy if--”

 

Suddenly, a piercing, crackling noise cuts him off. It’s a deafening, warped kind of static, exploding from somewhere in Zero’s half of the room so loud that it startles them both into jumping back and hugging the walls. Rippen gawks at Zero in disbelief, clutching his chest with wide-eyed horror as the boy gingerly picks up a blue MUHU from the end table by the window. It can’t be his; must’ve belonged to one of his parents. The lights flash erratically, and the device vibrates like it’s trying to levitate but can’t quite muster the energy.

 

In the eerie quiet of the room, the static roars for several seconds uninterrupted, gradually dying down into one glitchy, distorted word.

 

“Penn!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my awesome co-author and beta, kittenmittens! In a small fandom, nerds gotta stick together. 
> 
> This project is an unusual and exciting one for me, and I really look forward to seeing how it develops. We appreciate every single view and 'kudos'. Thank you all for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

Penn feels his eyes bug out of his head as he stares at the MUHU. "H-Hello? Mom? Dad?" There's a little bit of static that could almost be a voice, and Penn's totally betting one of his parents is there on the other end, trying to answer get through to him. Only problem is, the MUHU keeps acting like it wants to blow up.

 

"Okay, so this is... broken." He cringes. "Definitely... sparking a little bit there. Heh, if I were any less careful, it'd probably light my sleeve on fi— _OH NO, THERE IT GOES!"_  Yelping, Penn frantically waves his arm, then drops the MUHU as he starts patting out the flames.

 

Rippen grimaces from across the room. "Figures. The one thing that could get me out of this Zero-infested nightmare gets broken, by you, within ten seconds."

 

Penn laughs sarcastically. "Eheheh. Okay,  _first of all_ , if something's infested, that means there has to be more than one thing doing the  _infesting_." He gingerly picks the MUHU up off the floor, using the bottom of his shirt to clear away any grime. "Second, it was already broken before I got to it." He grins, holding it up over his head, real slowly. Just to give what he's about to say next the right oomph. "But I think I can fix it."

 

Rippen rolls his eyes. Boy, that's just his signature move, isn't it? "Right. And Larry's a master of the culinary arts. That's why the last thing he force-fed me was still moving."

 

Penn wrinkles his nose and gags. " _Blech_. Seriously?"

 

Rippen shakes his head and holds up his hand. "Yes, and trust me, you don't want to know what it was."

 

"Uh, no," Penn replies, "I don't. Who  _would?"_

 

Rippen sighs. "... Fair point."

 

They're quiet for a second while Penn tries to remember what they were talking about. "Huh? Oh yeah!" He holds the MUHU up again. "After we zapped to the north pole and you shattered my MUHU— _thanks for that_ , by the way—Phyllis gave me a couple repair lessons! Looks like all those hours locked in the basement with her, getting sprayed with the hose whenever I messed up, fearing for my life... It's all about to pay off."

 

"Well?" Rippen gestures at the device all... jerkily. The more time they spend here, the twitchier the guy gets. "What are you waiting for? Fix it!"

 

Penn glances down at the MUHU, then up at Rippen, squinting defensively as he clutches it to his chest. "I guess I  _could_  fix it...." He tries to make it pretty clear that he's got plenty of reason not to. Other than torturing Rippen, that is, but there's no way that isn't a bonus.

 

"Yes, you could," Rippen insists. "There. I've solved your little internal dilemma. You can fix it, and you should fix it, so you. Will. Fix it."

 

"I mean, I  _guess_  I could," Penn repeats himself, staring up at the ceiling as he drums his fingers thoughtfully on the table. "But... who's to say I'll want to bring you along if my friends, and  _my_  family, find a way to get me out of here?"

 

"Oh, I see what you're doing," Rippen deadpans. "Blackmail. Very clever." He makes a "tsk" sound, picking his spear up again. "But here's another idea. I take the MUHU once you've fixed it, push you off a cliff, and then wait for your precious parents to open a up a portal and come looking for you."

 

"Then maybe I won't fix it!" Penn counters, slamming his free hand down. "Or, uh, here's a thought: if I do fix it, and after that you feed me to a giant, radioactive hamster, my parents still won't be idiots." He jerks his finger back and forth, like he's threatening to poke Rippen from across the room. "Which means they're not gonna come to your rescue without any proof that I'm alive and well."

 

"I'll just say you're angry and them and you don't want to talk," Rippen growls, then tosses his arms in the air. Like Penn's being the unreasonable one! He turns his head, mouthing a quick 'Can you believe this?' before he remembers he doesn't have anybody but himself to say that to. "You teenagers are always having those obnoxious  _emotions_."

 

"Ohoho. Not  _me_ , Rippy." Penn stomps across the room, making good on his threat and jabbing Rippen a couple times in the chest. "I have a  _great_  relationship with my parents. I tell them everything."

 

Rippen glares down at Penn, talking through gritted teeth. "That sounds... " He groans, shuddering in disgust. "Lovely."

 

"Look!" Penn sighs, stepping back. "I'll cut you a deal, Rippen. I fix the MUHU, get ahold of my somebody—and, you know what? I'll even vouch for you when my team comes to save me! Or us.  _If_  you're good." He grins. "Sound fair?"

 

Rippen snarls under his breath. "Fix it.  _Then_  we'll talk."

 

Penn shrugs. "Fine. In the meantime, how about you... " He thinks for a second, then winces when his stomach gives a whiny growl. "I dunno. Find us something to eat? Those coconuts with teeth looked like they might've been....  _edible_ ." Easing down into a chair, Penn leans over a table and starts looking around for—oh! Is that a tiny screwdriver carved out of a rat femur? Nice! Well, gross. Gross-nice? "Just think about it: we tough it out for a couple days, and then we get back to Earth and never have to work together again. Which is  _great_ , because I'm pretty sure being around you this much is giving me hives." He starts scratching at his neck. Then his arms. Ooh, and his head. "Huh. And lice. Are there lice in your dimension? 'Cause if there are, I bet you totally have them."

 

"Or we could revisit the cliff idea," Rippen suggests. "A MUHU can't be  _that_  hard to fix if you're able to do it. I'll just toss you into a volcano, fix your stupid trinket, and—"

 

Penn cuts him off. "And what? Call Larry?"

 

Rippen glances away, then says defensively, "Maybe." He clears his throat, then apparently comes up with a better idea. "Or!  _Or_  I could pretend to be you. Trick your loved ones into freeing me instead while you're being barbecued over a pit of hot magma."

 

Penn cocks an eyebrow. "You know that it's a  _video_ , right? Like, they'll be able to see you."

 

Rippen shrugs. "Then I'll just stand offscreen. Can't be that hard to imitate you." He musses his hands through his hair, making it stick out in all directions... Oh, come on! In his  _dreams_  does Penn's hair look like that! And what's with that high-pitched, effeminate voice? "Look at me! I'm Penn Zero! I look like a lollipop stuck to a sheep's backside, and my teeth could be used as a can opener."

 

"Not listening!" Penn shouts, leaning over the table again and easing the little panel off the back of the MUHU. Huh. Not as bad as he thought! Just a couple wires crossing the wrong way, and the weird, inter-dimensional shard is still intact. All he has to do is bend a couple prongs holding it back into place before the thing stops shaking and sparking. "Whew! Okay. Not that you're gonna appreciate it, buuuut..." He screws the panel back on, then holds it up proudly. "Ta-daaah!"

 

A voice thunders out of the MUHU. "PENN ZERO!"

 

Penn screams, dropping it onto the table as a projection of Phyllis, standing in the Odyssey, appears. "Phyllis?!"

 

"Honey?" His mom rushes into the frame, then beams. "Oh, it really is you! I thought it might be one of those fire swamp mimics. They're such a nuisance, and I didn't want to get my hopes up, but... " She sighs happily. "There you are!"

 

"I told you he'd be fine." Dad rushes into view, too. "Takes more than a little bomb going off and a killer planet to trip up our boy!"

 

"Uh, thanks, guys." Penn grins, rubbing the back of his neck.

 

"We're so glad you're okay." Mom keeps smiling, grabbing dad's hand gently.

 

"And now that we know you're okay," dad goes on. He gives a big sigh, then grabs his head and tugs at his hair in panic. "What were you  _thinking!?"_

 

"The Most Dangerous World Imaginable is almost impossible to survive in!" Mom insists. "Your dad and I were barely scraping by! And we've been professional heroes for  _years!"_

 

"ZEROS!" Phyllis puts her hands on mom and dad's shoulders and pries them apart, stepping between them. "We are all having agreement that Penn Zero is very stupid boy, yes?"

 

"That's not—" Penn's mom starts to talk at the same time Rippen flatly says, "Yes."

 

"Rippen?" Dad looks vaguely disgusted. Which is good, because it means he's not totally hysterical yet. "Huh. So you  _didn't_  burn up during accidental entry."

 

Mom grimaces. "How...  _wonderful._ You're alive, and the the two of you are... there. In the Most Dangerous World Imaginable. Together."

 

Penn sneers over at Rippen. "Oh, yeah. It's been a real hoot."

 

"You are missing point," Phyllis interjects. "There may still be way to escape back into your universe."

 

"Uh, yeah!" Penn rolls his eyes. "Why else did you think I was trying to call you? Inter-dimensional tea time? Eheh. Maybe when we get a little more of a routine established, I guess, but  _not_  right now."

 

"You are ready to start doing the listening now?" Phyllis narrows her eyes and Penn shrinks guiltily. "Thank you." She steps back, grabbing a remote from off her desk and pressing the button. Instantly, a hologram shoots out of it, and a series of images play. "If we build portal to Most Dangerous World Imaginable, we will be in same situation. Someone will have to stay behind and close portal from inside."

 

Penn grins, glancing towards Rippen hopefully. Rippen glowers. "Not on your life, Zero."

 

Penn shrugs. "Worth a shot."

 

"However," Phyllis continues, "if you are able to build MUT projector from bomb pieces, you may be able to zap into neighboring dimension. From there, Phyllis can triangulate your position and bring you home. Then, is happy good times, and Phyllis begins retirement."

 

"Great!" Penn brings his fist down onto his palm. "How long's it gonna take to build? A couple days? Maybe a week?"

 

"With supplies you have now," Phyllis drones, "along with complete lack of knowledge concerning trans-dimensional technology... " Phyllis types onto her little projector-calculator thing, and it flashes the result as she says it. "No less than one year."

 

"A  _year?"_ Penn squeaks. "Ohhh no. Oh no, no... I can't be stuck here that long! Not with  _him!"_  He gestures wildly to Rippen, starting to hyperventilate. "He's what happens if you soak a normal human in pickle water and added in a garnish of  _skunk butt!"_

 

"Are you kidding?" Rippen throws his arms up. "As if I'm any more pleased about being imprisoned on this planet with a Zero! And not even your mother or father—you're  _literally_  the worst one!"

 

Penn narrows his eyes. "You take that back."

 

Rippen scowls right back. "Why don't you come and make me, you putrid little pile of orange compost?"

 

"That is enough." Phyllis crosses her arms, looking very slightly annoyed. Which is pretty annoyed, by Phyllis standards. "Phyllis has no emotional connection either side of argument."

 

Penn blinks. "Whuh? Really?"

 

"Yes, really. So Phyllis will be voice of reason." She points to Penn. "You have very minor knowledge of MUT technology." She points to Rippen. "And you have body that does not resemble string bean in orange, afro wig, meaning you can lift large objects. Together, you can possibly create working projector and perhaps even not die."

 

"Uh... " Penn swallows, looking at Rippen again before turning to stare up at Phyllis. He doesn't think he really needs Rippen's help, but it could make things go faster. Besides, menial labor might be just the job for him! It means he barely has to do anything, and since there's no way Penn isn't gonna be leading this mission, Rippen won't have a chance to screw everything up.

 

"I will send blueprints to MUHU. You may call when you are about to explode face because of poor workmanship. Otherwise, do not bother Phyllis."

 

The screen sort of jerks to one side, and the next thing Penn knows, his parents are holding the MUHU out at arm's length.

 

"Okay, bud," Dad says. "Much as it pains me to admit it, it... might be in your best interest to leave this with Phyllis. MUHUs aren't all that easy to come by, and you need to get that portal up and running more than you need to talk to us."

 

Mom nods sadly. "He's right, honey. But we'll come here every day to call you, all right?"

 

Penn feels his eyes start to sting, and he smiles sadly, quickly rubbing the tears away from the corner of his eye. "Y-Yeah, mom. Thanks."

 

"We love you, sweetie." Penn can see her hand hovering over the button to end the call, but she's hesitating.

 

"I love you, too." Penn lets out a quick exhale, then adds. "And I'll be home before you know it." After that, he ends the call, slouching back against his chair with a groan. About a second later, the MUHU pings and Penn jumps. An outline of Phyllis appears, followed by a message. "Uh, okay... " Penn opens it, and a projection of specific, half-broken bomb parts appears. "Guess this is what we're supposed to grab."

 

Rippen snatches the MUHU out of his hand. "Oh, give me that. It's not like you'll be of any use with those pre-pubescent noodles you call arms."

 

Penn gives an offended gasp. "Uh, these are  _very_  toned, okay?" He stands up and flexes. "I just happen to have an extremely svelte type of musculature."

 

Rippen gives him a bland stare. "Whatever." He trudges towards the door, and steps outside. And screams. There's this really loud stomping and a few punching sounds, and Rippen sticks his head back in, panting and covered in little bite marks. Penn raises one eyebrow, making a soft "whuh" sound, then yelps and stumbles back when Rippen tosses a big, dead...  _thing_  onto the floor. "There. Why don't you make yourself useful and turn this into something we might be able to survive eating."

 

Penn rolls up his sleeves. Well, metaphorically. He actually just... slides his gloves and bracers off. "Get ready to eat your words, Rippen. Along with the most delicious giant-mutant-eel-ferret soup you've ever tasted!"

 

Rippen doesn't answer, just gives him another long, flat, uninterested glower—which is starting to get  _real_   overplayed by the way!—before leaving the house and shutting the door behind him. Grumbling, Penn stares at the door for a few seconds, then grabs a bone-knife off the wall (this bone thing's gonna get old fast, isn't it?), stepping over the eel-corpse and grimacing.

 

Okay. Gross. He's still gonna rule at this, though! But it's totally gross.

 

* * *

 

Rippen doesn't get back til sundown. Well, star-down. Barfing, screaming star-down. Penn hears a bunch of dragging noises outside, and then Rippen storms into the house, just as scowly as ever.

 

"Well, look who made it back in one piece." Penn grins. "Who wants some 'I didn't get eaten by a mecha-gorgon' kalimari?"

 

Rippen wrinkles his nose. "Don't be absurd, Zero. Kalimari's made from squid, not..." He trails off, taking a deep, gross sniff. "Hm. That... smells... " Penn glances up at him. "Passable."

 

Penn gives Rippen a flat look. "Gee, thanks." Then, he smiles again. "It's okay, Rippen. I know what you're trying to say is, 'That smells right delicious, guv. Pip pip cheery somethin'..' Uh. British." He starts dumping a couple servings into some bone... bowls. With a bone ladle. Out of the bone pot and  _yeah_ , that's definitely getting old. "A real man's man isn't afraid to take a couple semesters of home ec."

 

"If you could stop talking—or, making any noises, really—that would be lovely." Rippen grabs a bowl off the table, kneading at his forehead. "I have such a headache."

 

"Wow." Penn blinks. "I could say something about how you're being a total baby right now, and how your complaining about a headache is giving  _me_  a headache, but I'm just gonna, uh, take the high road and go ahead and not do that." He couldn't find any bone spoons, so he just drinks out of the bowl. Maybe he can pretend it's Miso soup at that sushi place Sashi's not allowed to go to anymore. He and Boone kept laughing about how close "Sashi" and "sushi" are, and it just... It wasn't pretty. "Welp! We've got a long day of hating each other's guts tomorrow! Might as well get some sleep."

 

Rippen grumbles, trudging towards the bed, but Penn sets down his bowl and scoots ahead of him, jumping onto the mattress and settling in. "Ooh! Comfy." He gets into his best lounge pose, grinning up at Rippen smugly. "See, remember our whole deal? If you want any of that sweet, sweet, MUT projector to get built, I'd suggest you let  _Penn-y_  take the  _bed-y_ ." He pauses to think, then adds, "Plus, who  _knows_  what my folks have done in this thing! I mean, they probably—" Rippen makes a horrified face, then retches loudly. "Annnd bingo." He smirks confidently, then winces to himself, looking down at the bed and... deciding he's not gonna think too much about it. Flopping back down, he starts settling in for real. "So I'll just take the bed. The pillows. This—ooh, fluffy!— _down_  comforter. And you can get the, uh... " Penn points towards the ground. "I know! The floor."

 

Rippen snorts like an angry dragon. "I truly  _loathe_  you, Zero."

 

"Hey!" Penn pouts, crossing his arms. "I'm not even making you stay on your side of the house! Yeah. You're  _welcome_  for that."

 

Rippen doesn't respond, just eases down with his back against the wall before closing his eyes. Penn watches him for a second, then shakes his head, curling up and yanking the covers over himself. Yep! Not bad. Not bad at all! Actually, as he starts to drift off, he has this weird dream where he rolls right off the mattress. But that can't be happening. And even if it is, it doesn't matter. Penn curls up against... something, and decides the floor's surprisingly comfy.


	4. Chapter 4

Rippen sleeps surprisingly soundly for a man under such devastating stress. He’s still too far from consciousness to remember why he’s so stressed, specifically, aside from the general background radiation of misery that is his day-to-day existence. But he’s comfortable now, and he doesn’t want to think about his life unless he absolutely has to. 

 

A dull noise threatens to wake him up, making him mutter incoherently in protest and huddle closer to Freddy. Ah, Freddy. One of the few small, precious comforts he has on this wretched planet. Rippen smuggled him all the way from home, buried in his luggage to avoid childish scrutiny. He sighs and nuzzles against the soft, familiar curls, holding Freddy a little tighter and… wait. This isn’t right. Whatever he’s got pinned against his chest is much too big, and it’s bony and nauseatingly warm and  _ oh lord _ . 

 

Rippen’s eyes spring open, and just as he feared, he’s somehow wound up in a repulsive embrace with Zero. He’s on the floor, curled up on his side, still stranded in the same repugnant carcass shack, and Zero’s basically wrapped around his waist like a malnourished python. The boy’s got his head on Rippen’s chest, snoring softly and drooling a little and no, no, just no. Shuddering in horror, Rippen grabs a hold of Zero’s shoulders and pries him off violently. It doesn’t take much to tear him loose, allowing Rippen to shove him across the packed dirt floor and give himself space to scramble away. 

 

“Hnuhh what?! Theodore?” Zero looks around frantically, clutching his hand to his chest like  _ he’s  _ the one who’s been wronged here! “Rippen! I’m on the floor! What happened? What were you trying to--” He gives this long, melodramatic gasp, and Rippen is already just so tired of him. “You were gonna take me out in my sleep, bury me alive, but my  _ catlike reflexes _ stopped you!” 

 

“Oh, as if! You’re the one who’s been violating my personal space all night!” 

 

“There _is no_ night in The Most Dangerous World Imaginable! There’s no daytime, either. I mean, it was actually super inconvenient, since my parents totally messed up their sleep schedules and called me when I was up at three AM eating crab legs out of the fridge-- wow, I am really missing the point of this.” Clearing his throat, Zero looks up at Rippen and frowns. “The point is, I wouldn’t touch your grody… anything with a million foot pole! Obviously _you_ grabbed _me_!”

 

“Absolutely not!” Rippen gestures angrily with both hands, ready to stand by his story even though he’s well aware he was sort of the one doing the… holding. “You were on  _ my  _ floor! If anything, you infringed on me!” 

 

“Okay, obviously this is a totally unsolvable mystery that we’ll never figure out until the end of time, even though it’s still  _ totally  _ your fault and I’m convinced you were doing something extra weird in your sleep.” Zero’s voice trails off into a groan, and he cringes. “Look, how about we just agree this never happened?” 

 

“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said since we got here.” Rippen rises to his feet and dusts off his undershirt, like he’s trying to shake loose the feeling of handling something filthy. (That’s exactly what he’s doing, come to think of it.) He sniffs dismissively, keeping a  _ marked  _ distance from Zero. “We’ll do the mature thing and never speak of--” 

 

“Are those sock garters?” Zero snorts, clamping a hand over his mouth before apparently realizing that he doesn’t care about being polite. He starts openly snickering after that. “W-What are you supposed to be, the bad guy in a gangster movie? A grampa who got lost trying to pick up the morning paper? Do you have some-- some kind of phobia that your fancy socks might start sagging?” 

 

“Sock garters are perfectly practical-- no, I don’t have to explain my fashion sensibilities to you.” Rippen has to remind himself that he’s talking to a troglodyte who wears long sleeves underneath t-shirts. In public, no less! 

 

“Wait, wait, I’ve got one more!” Holding his pinky out mockingly, Zero dons a shrill, obnoxious English accent. “Are you an old-timey British gent who got a rogering on his way to the pub?” 

 

“You obviously have no idea what that expression means.” His tail lashing thoughtfully, Rippen tries to sort of straighten his hair with his fingers.

 

“Yeah, I do,” he insists. Then, he puts on the most unbearable phony accent Rippen’s ever heard since… well, since the last time Zero tried to imitate an English accent. “Oi’ve just bean rogered up in the pub, wot wot! Criminy and biscuits, old chapperino!” He finishes this statement despite Rippen interrupting constantly with variations of “no,” “stop it,” and “what’s wrong with you.”

 

“No, Zero, it’s… I don’t want to explain this to you.” Rippen just woke up and he’s already exhausted. “Can we just stop talking for-- I don’t know, I don’t know how to tell time here-- approximately ten minutes?” 

 

“Ehh, if you think you can go without my  _ luxurious voice _ for that long.” Zero wrinkles his nose disdainfully as he says that, pacing around the tiny room. Watching him grates on Rippen’s nerves horribly, like watching Larry try to get through basic physical labor. (Seriously, he’s got those little sausage fingers, it takes him twenty minutes to open a jar of jam and he narrates the  **entire** time.) He has to patrol and inspect the place meticulously, inspecting the unbroken windows and checking on the surviving pots. Finally, he sits down by the breakfast nook and starts fiddling with the MUHU, projecting a hologram of some tangled, nonsensical mechanism blueprints. 

 

At first, Rippen’s just happy to have the quiet. He pops his back, stealthily sniff-checks a few choice segments of armor before getting dressed. But eventually, Zero’s soft little “uh-huh”s  and “ooh, that’s interesting”s get even more irritating than his regular conversation, and Rippen ends up looming over his shoulder darkly, trying to make sense of what he’s doing. 

 

“Oookay, you’re getting a little close for comfort, pal.” Zero shrinks down against the table, glancing up at Rippen suspiciously. “Can I have some breathing room? This is incredibly delicate work.” 

 

“Zero, if you can do it, it can’t possibly be that difficult.” Rippen responds to Zero’s obvious discomfort by getting closer, glaring even harder than before. “You’re my only ticket off this desolate rock, and I plan to keep a close eye on your disgusting, freckled head.” 

 

“See, that’s the stuff I’m talking about.” Setting the MUHU aside, the boy scoots his ramshackle chair away from from Rippen. “That’s just creepy,” he whines. 

 

“It’s only creepy if you cast it in a creepy light-- this is all classic villain dialogue!” If Zero ever studied his role the way Rippen has, he’d know this sort of thing. “I say things like ‘I find your naivete repulsive’ or ‘your family will never see you again’, and then you respond with some tired cliche that doesn’t really matter.” 

 

“I’m cliche? Buddy, Ol’ Rip, ol’ pal, I don’t know how to break it to you, but you’re the most--” Zero gets cut off by a piercing beep, so loud that it makes Rippen startle slightly. (He can’t help it, he has a negative knee-jerk association with the MUHU call waiting tone. It’s always either Phil telling him it’s time to retreat, or worse, Larry calling at two AM to ask things like “do you think ants have dreams”.) 

 

Zero answers, his eyes lighting up hopefully when Brock and Vonnie’s faces spring onto the hologram plane. Great, just what Rippen needed. More Zeros. 

 

“Oh, honey! It’s good to see you.” Vonnie does that incredibly saccharine thing where she puts her hand over her chest-- boy, Rippen did not miss that. “How’re you holding up?” 

 

“I’d say the first night’s the hardest, but that’s…” Brock gestures helplessly with both hands. “That’s not true. Not by a longshot.” They’re both still great orators, Rippen sees. 

 

“Thanks, guys. I’m, uh… I’m getting by.” Ugh, they’re just going to talk about him like he’s not here, aren’t they? That’s fine, Rippen can ignore them, too. He can focus on his own, equally important work with… oh, who is he kidding. He’s got nothing to do here. 

 

“Good, good! We’re gonna give you some pointers for living out there,” Brock smiles, visibly struggling to look optimistic. “For… however long you’ll be there. Hopefully not too long.” 

 

“Make no mistake, we’ll be lobbying Phyllis for better solutions every day. A year is  _ way  _ too long for you to be away from home, missing school, participating in gladiatorial combat for root vegetables…” Vonnie catches herself rambling, the most instantly recognizable and annoying habit of the Zero clan, and clears her throat. “M-My point is, we’re doing everything we can to get you home as soon as possible. Both of us, and Phyllis, Boone and Sashi, too.” Rippen suppresses dry heaves.

 

“Thanks, that… that means a lot.” Zero nods, still with that loathsome martyr smirk on his face. 

 

“Okay! So, first tip: never assume that anything’s not alive.” Brock rolls a cracked chalkboard into the frame, apparently planning on some kind of lengthy survivalist lesson. It may be helpful, but Rippen’s not sure if he can tolerate listening to these people for so long. “Even rocks and trees can and  _ will  _ eat you on this planet. Trust me, I spent three hours inside of a sycamore, you do not wanna go through that.” 

 

Rolling his eyes, Rippen finally steps away from the MUHU and heads for the door. He can sense when he’s not welcome, and he’s not so pathetically desperate for social contact that he’ll tolerate this kind of treatment. At the very least, Rippen still has his dignity, and no amount of Zero nonsense can take that away from him. 

 

“Is Rippen… How’re you doing with Rippen?” Alright, never mind, this conversation now markedly includes him. Rippen turns sharply on his heel and marches back to the MUHU projection, bristling. 

 

“I mean, he’s not easy on the eyes. Or the nose. And he’s got this gross mucusy thing going on when he talks, that’s why he rolls his ‘R’s’ all the time. He’s basically offensive to all five--” 

 

“I’m right here, you know!” Rippen puts a hand on Zero’s head and pushes him down unceremoniously so he can fit into the frame. 

 

“Rippen, you’re…” Brock tenses up. “All I can say is that if anything happens to Penn while he’s there, even if it looks like an accident, I am  _ personally  _ going to--” 

 

“Honey, settle down.” Vonnie grabs her husband by the arm, trying to stop him from making threatening gestures at the screen. “Even though we’ve been… competitors for a long time, Rippen, you have to realize that right now, our best option is putting that behind us.” 

 

“And with all due respect,” Rippen drawls, as calmly as he can, “you have to realize that anything you say to the boy, you’ll be saying in front of me.” He’s just being a good strategist! Looking out for his own interests, since obviously no one else will. 

 

“Okay, okay, guys? Can we focus on the not-dying lesson for now?” Zero rolls his eyes, (totally stealing Rippen’s move, not that he minds,) prying between Rippen and the projector. “Because that’s something I would like to learn about  _ very much _ .” 

 

“Right, right.” Brock nods ‘sagely’, draping his arm around Vonnie’s shoulders. Ugh, why do they always have to be so  _ affectionate  _ and  _ happy _ ? Always shoving their contentment in people’s faces. “Lesson two, son: never use fire to ward off the mechanical scorpions. Doesn’t do a darn thing but enrage them.” 

 

“Honey, no, you’re thinking of the magma bats,” Vonnie insists. “You use fire on the scorpions,  _ never  _ use it on the bats. It just makes them stronger.”

 

“I’m telling you, Von, it was metal scorpions. Something about fire just drives them nuts.” Brock starts drawing some kind of diagram on the board, and that’s when Rippen draws the line. Zero’s parents will probably try to baby him through his incompetence all day, and Rippen can’t stand to listen to them that long. He doesn’t care if they talk about him behind his back-- he’s certain they do that all the time anyway. 

 

Rippen grabs the most devastating looking weapon he can find and storms out the door bitterly. All he needs is some… whatever passes for fresh air in this world. He keeps his wits about him, of course, gazing up at the murky red and black sky with a sigh. Something screams in the distance, but something’s always screaming here, so it doesn’t particularly stand out. Perhaps Rippen can find some way to patch that damaged window, or at least something to jam it so nothing can slither inside. He knows  _ something  _ will try, that’s just his luck. 

 

Rippen makes it about three meters from the door before the ground heaves up at his feet, big chunks of dry earth raining down off a scratched, metallic carapace. 

 

A scorpion. Sure. Why not? 

 

Hefting his spear up with both hands, Rippen takes aim right between the creature’s main eyes and charges blindly. He  _ needed  _ this, something to help him cope with the fact that he’s probably going to spend the rest of his days in this bleak, foul-smelling nightmare world. If he’s got nothing better to do, he’s going to carve this monster into mincemeat or scrap metal or... whatever! 

 

Just before his blade pierces the beast shell, Rippen feels something catch him around the waist and yank him back. He yelps and looks over his shoulder, finding himself at the mercy of a second, larger scorpion’s pincer. Rippen swings the spear in a clumsy arc, bringing it down hard on the creature’s steely thorax. Instead of sinking in, though, the blade snaps and falls to pieces like a sheet of brittle glass. That… could’ve gone better. Not exactly what Rippen was expecting. 

 

“Rippen!” Oh, wonderful!  He’s got an audience for his gruesome demise, too. Zero comes running at him like an idiot, wielding a lit torch and swinging it around uselessly. He hesitates just once, just for a second, and the other scorpion snatches him up. It lifts him off his feet easily, swinging him around and forcing him to drop the torch. 

 

Though Zero’s smug, well-thought-out response is mostly crackly-voiced screeching, Rippen can pick out a few phrases of arguable sense. Small things like “fire,” “get,” and “third set of eyes, stupid, what’re you waiting for?!”

 

It’s a foolhardy, pathetically obvious plan, but Rippen doesn’t have time to do better. He plants his feet, pulling with his entire weight against the creature’s claw, and he manages to drag it a couple of steps before it yanks him back. Those two steps were all he needed, though. Rippen swipes the torch off the ground with his tail, passing it to his hand so he can jam the dim flame directly into the scorpion’s hideous cluster of eyes. It screams, letting go of him abruptly and scuttling backwards, trying to shield its head with its claws. The second scorpion backs up fearfully; Rippen seizes the opportunity to close in on it, brandishing the smoldering torch in its face. He shouts and terrorizes it until it drops the boy in its cowering, then swings at it one last time to drive it away. 

 

Shrieking horrifically, the two creatures retreat down the side of the sheer cliff, apparently able to climb vertical surfaces like spiders. Rippen watches them flee coolly, making sure they’re both definitely gone before he drops the torch and doubles over to catch his breath.

 

That monster nearly crushed the life out of him! How did Zero survive? He’s only a fraction as competent as Rippen, and the creatures had him-- he should be thoroughly dismembered by this point. Rippen’s… well, disappointed isn’t quite the right word, he knows that he still has use for Zero, but it’s frustrating to see that he escaped completely unscathed. Would a missing limb or two be too much to ask? 

 

“So… huh. Lucky shot, I guess!” The boy strolls up to Rippen like he doesn’t have a care in the world, crossing his arms smugly over his chest. 

 

“Hardly! What were you thinking?! You’re lucky you had  _ somebody  _ here to save your pathetic li…” Rippen’s voice trails off as it hits him. He saved Zero. He’s out of debt! They get to be on a even playing field again, and of course, the first thing he needs to do with that freedom is **rub it in** . “Ha! I saved your life!” Cackling excitably, Rippen kicks the doused torch toward Zero. “If it weren’t for me, you would’ve been torn limb from limb!” 

 

Zero clearly just isn’t seeing the gravitas of the moment. “Uh,  _ actually _ , if you’d given me just a couple more seconds, I would’ve trashed  _ both _ those scorpions and probably done a sweet backflip” 

 

“You were totally helpless! You walked right into those creatures like a fool!” Rippen smirks, leaning in closer to really lord it over Zero. “And now you. Owe. Me.” 

 

“Uh-huh.” The boy smirks, patting rippen’s shoulder condescendingly. “Suuuure I do, buddy.” Picking up his torch, Zero starts heading down toward the blast crater, apparently unaware that Rippen is nowhere near done with him yet. 

 

* * *

 

Over the course of the next few hours, Rippen continues to torment Zero as much as he possibly can. (He doesn’t know the next time he’ll get an opportunity like this, so he has to milk it.) Even lugging around an enormous hunk of machinery like an animal doesn’t ruin his mood. Rippen marches uphill briskly, shifting the weight on his back and sneering as Zero carries a pitiful bundle of wires. “This is exactly why you have to rely on me, Zero. Your plan would be  _ worthless  _ without my help. It’d take you years to manage this, and that’s if you didn’t get eaten first--” 

 

“That’s it!” Zero turns on his heel to meet Rippen, pouting childishly. “There’s only so much  _ gloating _ a person can barf out in one day! I let you take those things out, Rippy, because I. Felt. Sorry for you.”

 

“Oh, in your  _ dreams,”  _ Rippen hisses _. _ “You dropped the torch and probably wet yourself, but I’ll indulge your little delusions. Go ahead, tell me how your precious plan played out.” He dropped the torch! The scorpions were going to rip him in half, no questions asked. The boy’s just rambling-- maybe the volcanic heat finally got to him. 

 

“Oh,  _ oops _ .” Glowering at Rippen, Zero makes a big show of throwing his handful of wires to the ground. It… looks a lot like the gesture he used when he lost his torch back by the cliff. “I dropped the one key component that could save both of us, because I’m such a darn butterfingers!” Guess I’m totally helpless now. Hope I can use some sort of… charcoal or… soft mineral rock to write out a will while this scorpion starts digesting my legs.”

 

“That’s not…” Rippen’s eyes dart back and forth uneasily as he tries to poke holes in Zero’s plan. “T-The creature grabbed you like a ragdoll! No sane person would let that happen, it’d be suicide!” It certainly looked out of Zero’s control-- it looked like he’d be torn to shreds!

 

“Yeah, it wasn’t.” Zero crosses his arms. “If you’d actually listened to my parents, you’d know that the giant scorpions are scared of bright light. They’re total pushovers! Like, the  _ least  _ dangerous thing in The Most Dangerous World Imaginable!” 

 

“...It doesn’t make sense,” he repeats softly. “I don’t believe you.” His face falling, Rippen lets go of the wad of cables holding the shrapnel on his back, letting it all crash onto the dirt unceremoniously. “Why would you do that?” What would the boy have to gain from that? More importantly, what else has he been misleading Rippen about? 

 

“I don’t know! You… looked like you needed a win.” Slumping a little, Zero sighs. “You always look like that.” 

 

“But why would you do that-- why would you trust me to save you?” First of all, Zero’s implication that Rippen never wins is… insulting, but also sort of true. Mostly thanks to Larry, but still. Second of all, the whole notion that Zero would do something so ‘altruistic’ for no reason whatsoever not only makes Rippen’s skin crawl, it also reeks of suspicion. Obviously Zero wants leverage over him, more so than he already has, but what is he planning?

 

"So I trust you! So what? It's not like my glowing heroic heart of gold already bothers you OHOHOHO  _ WAIT. _ " Zero kicks the wire bundle on the ground in frustration; Rippen tries something similar with his cargo, but it’s a lot less effective and a lot more painful. 

 

Curling his hands into fists, Rippen bristles. “Why would you trust your life to someone you hate?!” This is such an obvious, natural question that it shouldn’t have to be asked: like “why do you want anesthetic for that root canal” or “why are you in my living room wearing a butterfly costume, Larry”. With the feeling that he’s got Zero backed into a corner, Rippen comes a few steps closer and looms over the boy threateningly. 

 

“I don’t hate you!” Zero throws his arms up, like an expression of defeat. “I never really hated you!” 

 

“...Of course you hate me.” Rippen frowns, deflating a bit. How stupid does Zero think he is? “I separated you from your parents. I made your day-to-day life miserable. I gave you shamelessly biased artistic critiques! I did  _ so many _ horrible things.”

 

“I mean, I guess I kinda hated you for a couple days, when I first found out what you did to my parents. But you were just… really hard to hate. I mean, you were so  _ sad!”  _ He can’t resist an opportunity for a cheap, ego-stroking insult, can he? But then, the rest of what he said sinks in, and there’s a long, uncomfortable pause. For one, Rippen is absolutely at a loss for any means to understand him. The Zero family is a simple-minded lot, and it’s not normally hard to wrap one’s head around their motives, but this time is just too bizarre for Rippen. He opens his mouth to argue a couple of times, only for his voice to trail off, and he ends up dragging his piece of machinery to the shack in virtual silence. 

 

Zero halfheartedly tries to strike up conversation with him a few times, but Rippen doesn’t really respond. It’s like someone just told him that his whole career was a joke. All that hard work, all the piercing comments and senseless cruelty, and Rippen still hasn’t even made a real enemy! Sure, Zero’s parents more or less openly despise him, but what does he have to show for that? He thought he’d at least made an impression on this brat! 

 

The worst part, though, is that he doesn’t even have the option to make up for lost time. Zero’s practically untouchable as long as he has the only working MUHU, and he knows that. He’s using it to lord his… “moral superiority” over Rippen. At least, that’s what Rippen would do, given that situation. Instead, Zero just goes inside and starts fooling around with his tiny screwdrivers again, muttering in a way that’s clearly  _ supposed  _ to be under his breath, but is actually just a little quieter than ordinary speech. 

 

And that’s it. He doesn’t rub it in. He doesn’t go out of his way to make Rippen look foolish or spite him, even though he’s got every opportunity to do that. It just doesn’t make any sense! Rippen eventually gets tired of watching him through the window, (he doesn’t bother to be subtle about it, and Zero makes a point of ignoring him,) and sits down with his back to the siding of the shack. 

 

The boy has been… comparatively easy on him, all things considered. All those chances to ruin, even kill him, and Zero turned them down. What lack of basic sense or survival instinct inspires Zero to be that way is still a mystery to Rippen, but it’s getting harder and harder to ignore. Resting his head in his hand, Rippen looks out over the endless expanse of lava rivers and the pits of crushed bone, feeling genuinely lost for the first time since he got here. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my co-writer and editor kittenmittens, and to everybody who takes the time to look at our work!


	5. Chapter 5

Penn smirks, grabbing a marker—okay, so it’s not really a marker as much as a wooden straw thing he stuck some lava beetle guts inside—and scratching off the last day of September on the calendar. “Wow. One month. Thirty days. A whole… month-arino! Gotta be honest, Rip. Did _not_ think we’d last that long.”

“Whatever you’re saying, I can’t hear it from out here.” Rippen shouts from the front ‘lawn', then adds, “Also, I don’t care.”

Penn rolls his eyes, then stands back to admire the big picture. All those red marks may not seem like much, but to him, it’s a whole month of hard work not to go completely insane, or vomit every two seconds until he was so dehydrated he passed out. Stuff he was sure he’d end up doing a lot when he realized he’d be living in the same space as _Rippen_. But, luckily, even though Penn can’t believe he’s actually thinking it, this hasn’t been all that bad. Actually, no; he _does_ have to dry heave a little after that thought pops into his head. Life with Rippen being not awful? It’s just too bizarre!

Leaning forward, Penn grabs the corner of the calendar and lifts it up, peeking at October’s picture, then yelping and dropping the page. Okay, there were a few pumpkins blocking the problem areas, but he and Boone are gonna have to have to have a _serious_ talk about how many tasteful nudes are in this thing. Shaking his head, Penn hops over the counter and heads out the door, stopping just behind Rippen so he can stand back and admire the 1/14 th-or-so of finished MUT projector.

“Yep. Lookin’ preeeeetty good.” Smiling, Penn crosses his arms. “Y’know, Rip, I kind of hate to admit it, but we make a not-super-terrible team! Of course, most of that’s cuz I’m half of it, and I’m awesome, but hey! You’ve got your strengths, too.” He pats the guy’s tense shoulder—seriously, why does he always feel like a rubber band that’s about to snap? Penn’s told him he should try going to the spa sometimes, but Rippen rejects the whole idea, probably because he’s scared he’ll _like it too much_. “And, you know what? If there was a hero-and-formerly-evil-sidekick competition, and one of the categories was looking like if Frankenstein shed his skin, you’d knock that one right outta the park.”

“Zero, I’m _trying_ to concentrate here.” Rippen doesn’t even bother looking up at Penn, but he can’t seem to resist giving one of his huffy, Victorian duchess sighs. “I know the concept terrifies you down to your very core, but it would be _lovely_ if you could shut up for just one second.”

“I’m giving you a compliment!” Penn groans. “How can you not get that? Do they not have compliments on whatever planet you’re from? Like… You speak English, and know what a college education is, because you never got one and that’s why you teach, so your planet is almost exactly like Earth, but everybody there has a tail instead of knowing what ‘being nice’ is?”

“This conversation is completely pointless,” Rippen grumbles.

“Okay, seriously.” Penn shakes his head, combs his fingers through his hair a couple times to calm himself down (that always works like a charm, because it’s still like touching cashmere, even though he hasn’t used any conditioner in a solid month), then eases down to sit next to Rippen. “This could’ve gone way worse. I mean, sure, we argue almost _constantly_ —most of that’s on your end, you’re not much of a team player, but I’m not here to point fingers—but we  still haven’t had any giant, mission-jeopardizing fights in four weeks. Usually Sash and Boone can’t go five days without almost tearing apart the fabric of the multiverse over, like… bake sale recipes… kung-fu action flicks…” Penn trailed off, counting on his fingers. “Uh, I think one time it happened because Boone got really passionate about Scottish line dancing.”

Rippen stops screwing… whatever into whatever, turning to glare over his shoulder at Penn. “Remember when I said this conversation was utterly pointless? About thirty seconds ago?” He scoffs and turns away again. “Yes. Well, you’ve done a wonderful job of making that statement even truer than before.”

“Maybe I should bake us a cake or something.” Penn ignores… whatever Rippen just said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Or maybe those cupcakes that you put together so it looks like one big cake…”

“Oh, I _hate_ those.” Rippen gags. “They’re so played out. It’s like, what? Do you think you’re special or something? Too good for regular cake?”

“Ugh, I _know_.” Penn leans up against the side of the portal frame lazily. “Ooh, look at us! We’re getting married, but we’re so quirky and unique, we’re gonna use—whaaaaa? Cupcakes?” He does a sarcastic fireworks motion around his head. “Mind. Blown.”

“Yes, it’s _dreadful_ ,” Rippen agrees.

“Yeah, I mean, what else? Are you gonna make your centerpieces at home, too? Uh, there’s a reason people hire a florist, _Cynthia.”_ Penn’s so hung up on the whole idea, he doesn’t hear the frame give a long, low creak until it’s too late, and before he can blink, a huge piece of the panel drops off and crashes onto the ground. “Oh no.” That was a huge chunk! A giant scrap of metal! Like… 1/3rd of the 1/14th they managed to build so far! Penn doesn’t even want to figure out if his math is right, mostly because he literally can’t, but what he does know is that this is super bad. “No, no, nononono…”

Okay, maybe… Maybe Rippen didn’t see! Maybe Penn can just put it back where it was annnndnope, wait. He’s… staring right at Penn. Well, glowering, really. Plus he’s twitching a whole lot, so he’s not too happy about what just happened. “Wait! Wait. I can fix this!” Penn ducks down, trying to lift the huge chunk into his arms. “OOF.” He grunts. “Real… Uh, real heavy. It’s okay—just gotta lift with my legs! Not using my lower back.” He pulls and pulls, starting to sweat and pant a little—“Kay. That’s not gonna work. Maybe if I just roll it a little… “ He pushes it as hard as he can. “Oh. It’s… blocked by a rock. Didn’t see that before. Yep. Just… totally missed it in my little, uh… scan of the area. I’ll just scoot it over to the left a little nope. Nope. ‘Nother rock. I see it now. You know, we _really_ could’ve picked some flatter terrain to build this thing on—“

“ZERO!” Rippen looks like a cherry soda somebody shook up really hard before it finally popped open. The foaming at the mouth really sells it, Penn thinks. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”

Penn cowers a tiny bit. Not because Rippen’s actually scary, but he seriously doesn’t want to get any of the guy’s _spit_ on him. It’s literally everywhere. “I said I was sorry.” He freezes, then straightens up as he thinks. “Wait. Did I?” He shakes his head and gestures for Rippen to back down. “Okay, well, I am. Just for the record.”

“I can’t believe you,” Rippen mutters. He’s got that bug-eyed look again, the one where he’s staring off into space like he’s seeing something nobody else can and… _ugh._ Penn’s gotta tell him to stop doing that, it makes him look like he’s got a lazy eye. If he has to have a total meltdown, fine, but he could try a little harder to look presentable during. “You may have just set back our progress another month! Or worse!” Climbing to his feet, Rippen glares down at Penn. “What if you broke some irreplaceable? We’re already working from scraps of _scraps_. There’s only so much we can jerry-rig together.” He stomps forward and pokes Penn—ow, _hard_! _—_ in the chest a couple of times. “If we’re stuck here for an extra month, or _longer_ , just know that it’s your fault.”

“Oh, what?” Penn scoffs. “Is that a threat? You think I can’t make it an extra month? I could make it another _year!_ I could stay here forever. Which is great, because, if I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying we may actually be stuck here forever depending on how important whatever I just broke is _Ohgosh.”_ Penn feels the blood drain out of his face. It feels like he’s been sent back in time, to the point where the portal first exploded. Well, more specifically, to the part where he noticed Rippen lying there like a vampire slug, facedown in the dirt, and Penn realized—y’know, after a brief flash of hope where he thought Rippen was dead—that he’d be stuck with the guy. “Nope. No. I can’t do it! A-Are you _kidding_ me? Have you _met_ yourself? You’re like an onion some fairy queen turned human, but it didn’t work all the way, and now you’re just a weird, snot-colored guy with zebra hair who still smells kind of like onion.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of tasting the garbage that comes _spewing_ out of your mouth?” Rippen growls under his breath. “As if I don’t have the short end of the stick! Being stuck with you is like being stuck with a permanent thorn in my… ” Rippen trails off. “Oh, I don’t know. Somewhere inconvenient. If anything, you’re the one who’s been dragging me down! I would’ve loved to have been trapped here alone. I’d be thriving! And even if I wasn’t, I’d still take being stuck on this volcanic zit of a planet _alone_ over spending five more minutes with you any day. Being forced to interact with you is almost as bad as when I was teaching.”

Penn lets out a scandalized gasp. “You take that back!” Frowning, he glancing aside thoughtfully. “… You know, you always could’ve quit if you hated it so much.”

“Yes, well, the job hunting scene is such a nightmare,” Rippen sighs. “You’re either under qualified, or you’ve been out of the game too long, and they always want you to be familiar with text formatting, or some new program that’s completely irrelevant to the job title.”

“Oh, no, no. I’ve heard.” Penn nods distantly. “Yeah, everybody says it’s a nightmare out there. I mean, half the time the only jobs that are hiring have barely been around for, like, a year.”

“Mm, I’m sure.” Rippen stares off bleakly into the distance.

“Wait, what—What am I _doing?_ I don’t care how witty my banter is, you don’t deserve it! I can’t be stuck here with you! I literally can’t do it. I gotta… I gotta get out of here!” He stomps past Rippen, muttering, “I agreed to a year and a half, man. That’s it. That’s my limit!”

“Oh, so you break the one key to our salvation, get huffy, storm off, and blame _me?”_ Rippen rolls his eyes (well, Penn’s not actually looking, but he’s pretty positive that’s what he’s doing.) “Are you sure this isn’t the Fairytale dimension? Because you’re acting like a complete _princess.”_

Penn skids to a halt, turning on his heel and letting out the most outraged and indignant squeak he can manage. “ _Ugh!_ ” If Rippen wants more of a retort than that, he’s out of luck. He doesn’t deserve Penn’s best material after that comment. In fact, Penn’s done. The one thing he and Rippen still agree on was they they’d both be fine stuck on The Most Dangerous World Imaginable _alone._ And Penn was especially cool with that! He’s great company! And he always agrees with himself, so there’d be no arguments about how to decorate the interior of his bone shack, or what the best way to drive off rampaging double-centaurs is. But stuck here? With Rippen? Like, _really_ stuck? Living with Rippen and knowing that, eventually, if he just sucks it up, he’ll never have to see his stupid tree-trunk neck and broccoli face again is one thing. But sharing a planet with Rippen for the rest of his life is a whole different story. And you know what? Penn can’t deal with it! He… He _quits,_ okay?

Stomping up the side of the hill, Penn decides to head for that cave halfway up the nearest, non-acid-covered mountain. He and Rippen cleared the tarantula-bats out of it ages ago, so it should be fine. (Looking at those things gave Penn nightmares, at least until he figured out they tasted like bacon.) Penn can camp out there for as long as he needs to. And if that happens to be the rest of his life, he can do that! Like he said, he’s great company. Oh, see? See what just happened there? He agreed with himself. Yep, this is already off to a great start. Penn’s gonna make an excellent roommate for… Penn. He hears Rippen call something out at him angrily as he walks higher, but he can’t make out most of it, except for the words “complete” and “diva.”

“Whoahoho _ho_.” Penn freezes, then does a 180 again, cupping his hands around his mouth as he bellows, “Pot calling the kettle black, Rip. Pretty sure _I_ wasn’t the one who had a complete meltdown because one of the doilies we found was cream instead of off white like the rest of them! Uh, no. That one was _totally_ on you, buddy!”

Rippen shouts something else, gesturing at the thing Penn broke.

Penn squints. “Whuh?”

He screams louder, but Penn still can’t…

“Ugh! Look, I can’t hear you!” He kneads at the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. “Just… Stop it. Okay? STOP IT. I’m supposed to be storming off, all right? You’re…. You’re _seriously_ killing my moment, here.” Rippen starts to yell again, but Penn just shakes his head. “GUH. Unbelievable.”

And, thanks to Rippen completely ruining the mood, that’s the tone of the scene Penn leaves forever on.

Just _perfect._

 

* * *

 

 

“S-s-s-s-ssstupid… mossst… d-dangerous… w-world… ih… im-maginable.”

Penn’s thought of a lot of different ways he could die. It sort of started after the mission with Boone in his body almost exploding his heart, but really, with his line of work, he feels like it was inevitable. He could get digested by a giant chalupa, or cursed to turn into a ghost toad by a warlock prince, or maybe shot out of a cannon into a star that never stops screaming…

Plummeting temperatures? Freezing to death? Nope. Penn never saw it coming. Especially on a place like the Most Dangerous World Imaginable. It just… seems so mundane! Penn’s honestly a little disappointed. He has no idea why it dropped about a hundred degrees in twenty minutes, but it just figured this stupid dimension had to find some way to mess with him. Okay, yes, apparently he’d rather die than live with Rippen. Way to call out the ol’ Zero bluff, universe. And no, Penn’s had this conversation with himself multiple times now (because he’s still a good roommate, even if it’s just to himself, and roommates help each other through emotional distress!), he definitely, absolutely prefers dying to spending any more time with Rippen. It’s not because he’s too stubborn to admit he was wrong. It’s not because he actually would rather live around a beefy green were-skunk who looks like somebody put a gnome in a taffy puller, as opposed to dying a horrible, painful death where ice swallows up his very being. Because, sure, Penn’s got basically everything to be proud of, except for maybe, like, two or three examples where he wasn’t the best team-player-slash-leader-slash-fiancé-to-the-troll-prince, but he’s still not gonna choose his pride over not dying! Because that would be super stupid.

Oh, and also, even if he did change his mind and admitted living with Rippen isn’t _quite_ as bad as getting frozen into a solid, gorgeous block of ice, there wouldn’t be a whole lot he could do about it now.

He’s kinda… stuck. His joints are in a very, uh, _not-movey_ mood at the moment. He’s gonna die here, and the last time he saw anybody he cares about was Boone, in calendar form, dressed as a sunflower and posing with a bunch of unfamiliar babies in caterpillar costumes. (Apparently, he pestered Phyllis constantly until she agreed to figure out a way to teleport his calendar to The Most Dangerous World Imaginable. Penn sure hopes it was worth it; Phyllis must not have been happy with Boone, because his arm had a whole lot of extra bends in it on their last MUHU call.)

Oh no. This is gonna be his last thought, isn’t it? Instead of something noble, or heroic, or slightly less weird, what’s actually plastered on the inside of his eyeballs is the image of Boone standing in a giant carved pumpkin, recreating _The Birth of Venus_ with nothing but different kinds of squash!

Groaning, Penn curls into the tightest ball he can manage, shivering so hard he feels like Sashi’s expensive personal massager. The one she kicked him through the wall for touching. Must’ve been worth a crazy amount of money, because she doesn’t pummel people over literally anything. Heh. As if. That was funny. Penn’s so funny! “G-Glad you enjoyed my little j-joke there, Penn.” Penn nods to himself. “O-Oh yeah. Real subtle, but it also works as sss.. situational commentary!” Penn chuckles. “Boy, am I gonna miss those kids. And mom, and d-dad. Uncle Ch-Chuck, Aunt Rose...” Heck, he might even miss The Chinchilla! He blinks, then glowers. “Okay—Well, Penn, now I’m just bummed. _Thanks_ , roomie.” He’s quiet for a second, mostly because he realizes he’s back to talking to himself like a serial killer in very little time. (Seriously, if he ever makes it out of this cave, he’s gonna have to discuss that with somebody. Seems like a pretty big red flag.) But then he shakes his head. “I-It’s not all bad. I mean, m-maybe I’ll get to meet up w-with everybody in the a-afterlife. Sashi w-would be some sort of super t-tough warrior goddess, and Boone’d be… “ Wait a sec; he’s gotta give this one a little more thought. “L-Like… a sss… sentient dimension? B-But all the molecules a-are actually tuh… tiny ffflip-flops when you p-put them under a micro… sssscope.”

Suddenly, there’s this loud crunching noise, and the boulder Penn rolled over the mouth of the cave gets pushed aside. Okay, well, actually, he didn’t roll it so much as tried over and over for, like, a half hour to get it to move. After that, he gave up and caught the attention of some 4th dimensional llamas, who just happened to knock the boulder perfectly into place by ramming into where they _thought_ Penn was. (It’s too bad they totally destroyed the twig-and-giant-rat-fur dummy of Penn, because he could see that coming in handy a lot.) Anyway, point being, they’re obviously back for revenge. So Penn’s not gonna freeze to death! Oh, no. That’d be too easy, apparently. Nope—he gets to be slowly and painfully digested in the eternal pit of despair that is a hyper-dimensional carnivorous llama stomach. Oh, that just _figures_.

“Th-That’s fine!” Penn somehow manages to get to his feet. “I can face my death with dignit— _Whoa!”_ Annnnnd he fell. To his knees. Oh, right. Frozen joints. “So what if it’s c-cold, and I’m alone, and this isn’t how I pictured l-literally _any_ of this goingohwhoamIkidding.” Penn moans at the top of his lungs, clutching his head miserably. “I don’t wanna d-die! Not like this! I was supposed to do so much _m-more_! Grow up, get a real, normal job! Buy a house, see the world outside of Middleburg…” He slumps, letting his head loll back, then jerking forward in a panic. “Oh, man. I d-didn’t even think about what’s gonna kuh… come _after_ I die. Wh-What’s the j-judgement system? B-Because if gossip is conssidered a sin, I am _n-not_ looking at very good afterlife prospects.”

“Oh, would you _stop?”_ Penn gawks as Rippen squeezes in through the gap between the boulder and the wall, covered in head to toe with some sort of animal skin. And, okay, Penn knows it was probably a last minute survivalist throw-together, but it’s seriously tacky. “I’ve got three layers of fur on top of my ears, and I can still hear you prattling on like my Grandmum when she went senile.”

“O-Oh, I’m sorry!” Penn starts shivering even harder. “Is my f-final will and t-testament bumming you out?”

“Quit being so melodramatic,” Rippen drawls. “You aren’t going to die. Your imbecile parents filled me in on the situation, and I know precisely what to do.”

“Heh.” Penn smirks. “C-Congrats, Rippy! Guess there’s a f-first time for everything.”

Rippen gives Penn an annoyed glare. “Are you done? May I continue?”

“O-One more, one more!” Penn pauses, then asks, “Y-You know what being r-right is, right? H-Here’s a hint. Everyth-thing you’ve sssaid or done in your whole l-life? It’s the opposite of th-that.”

Rippen’s completely silent for a good ten seconds. “Now?”

Penn nods sagely. “Yeah, g-go ahead.”

Rippen sighs. “Thank you.” There’s a really awkward pause (which, yeah, Penn will admit, that’s definitely on him) before Rippen continues. “Your imbecile parents wouldn’t stop calling the MUHU until I picked up. Apparently, there is a winter on The Most Dangerous World Imaginable, it’s just that it only lasts 24 hours, and happens to go down to a bare minimum of negative 50 degrees Fahrenheit.”

“S-S-So you came up here to d-do what? Gl-Gloat?” Penn squints at Rippen, then winces when a smaller version of the guy’s roadkill ensemble gets thrown in his face. “Sss. Seriously! Why are you rescuing me? What’s in it for you?”

Rippen rolls his eyes and groans, “Well, I can’t very well fit my fingers into all the nooks and crannies built into a MUT Projector, can I?” He wiggles his wrist mockingly. “I’d need to have those stubby little ferret paws you call hands for that.”

Penn lets out an offended gasp. “Th-They’re not _stubby!_ ” He holds up a (sort of blue, semi-frostbitten hand) defiantly. “In fact, I _guarantee_ my fingers are at least fifty-percent more slender, and one hundred percent better moisturized, than anyother fifteen-year-old guy.” Waving his arm around a little, he sighs. “Okay, so my hand’s kinda… It’s sorta frozen into a blue lobster claw right now, but I know _you_ know I’m right.”

“I’m not going to touch you to confirm that,” Rippen drones. “Unless, of course, my life depended on it.” He grimaces—or is that just how he smiles? Ugh, it’s so _unsettling_. Like an evil Sultan or some hobo on the street corner you always secretly suspected might lunge at you and try to chew your face off. “… Speaking of which, I have a… less than ideal proposal.”

Penn squints, but it might just be because he’s getting woozy from the cold. “Yeah?”

Rippen brings a mitten-clad hand to his mouth, clearing his throat. “Well, first of all, the piece of equipment you assumed you broke is actually quite easily fixed, according to that zombie woman of indeterminate origin. Which, honestly, makes all your theatrics utterly uncalled for and completely over-the-top. Really, if anything, your stupid little fit delayed us more than you actually breaking the thing—“

“Hey, uh, this nifty s-speech of yours?” Penn somehow manages to yank the animal-murder-jacket over his head and shoves his arms through the sleeves. It’s a little better, he’s got to admit. But if Rippen was gonna be good at anything, of course it’d be making the grossest, weirdest, ugliest coats ever. “Does it have a p-point? Y’know, other than verbally duh… dragging me through the mud. Because I’m about _this c-close_ to passing out, so you might wanna hurry it up a little.” When he says ‘this close’, he lifts his hand up to his face, showing how close his thumb and pointer fingers are, then chuckles. “See? I can’t really move my f-fingers, so this is totally by accident. They just happened to freeze like this. I mean, how cool is that? The, uh, coincidence part. Not the frostbite part. That part’s kind of horrifying.”

Rippen’s quiet for another few seconds, then grumbles, “I regret absolutely all of this.”

Penn snorts, then yelps at the top of his lungs when Rippen…

He _hugs_ him. Seriously! Penn hasn’t screamed like that since that time Boone tried to (actually, semi-successfully) brand him on dinosaur cowboy world. Squirming as hard as he can while still being as half-stud, half-block-of-Penn-Zero-shaped-ice, he hisses, “What are you _doing_!?”

“Huddling together for warmth,” Rippen mutters, like he’s getting sick just thinking about it. Well, he’s not the only one. “If you hadn’t interrupted me earlier, that was the point I was going to eventually reach. Unless we do something to warm ourselves up, one of us—probably you, since you’re built like an underfed stray cat—may die.”

“That’s fine, actually!” Penn lets out a choking sound as Rippen strangle-hugs him harder. “GCK! Seriously! If the choices are death, and ‘touching Rippen for more than two seconds, or, scratch that, touching Rippen _at all_ , ever’, I think the choice is a-actually pretty obvious.”

“Oh, _believe me_ ,” Rippen growls. “I’m not any happier about this than you are. But I can’t build that projector on my own, and I refuse to live the rest of my life on a planet where the entire color scheme is a bunch of different hues of… Oh, I don’t know. _Vomit_ orange.” He shakes his head, and Penn gags as that stupid goatee scratches against his cheek. “Seriously! After a while, it gets to be such an eye sore.” Rippen coughs, wrinkling his nose and turning away, still gripping Penn like he’s the last of his hopes and dreams. Heh, as if. Those would’ve gone the way of ol’ Yeller a looooong time ago. “Besides, we both know I’m the one who’s suffering more here. Your hair feels like those disgusting, curly corn chips the young people like. The ones that give you intestinal distress for the entire evening if you eat half a bag.”

Penn grits his teeth and winces. “Eugh. Okay, first of all, uh, Rip? Too much information. Seriously. I’m sorry your bowels are apparently some kind of million-year-old temple of death, but I didn’t need to hear lit-terally _any_ of that. And, second? You’re not fooling anyone.” Penn gives a subtle hair flip, or the best equivalent he can muster with Rippen trying to squeeze the life out of him. “We both know my hair’s like a soft, ginger cloud. You can’t even fathom how many ladies dream about resting their heads on this here mane.”

Rippen nods thoughtfully. “Well, negative numbers can be hard to conceptualize.”

“Ohh, yeah.” Penn gives a flat look. “Kind of like how _you_ can’t conceptualize Lady Starblaster’s number, no matter how much you bug her!”

Penn can’t really see Rippen’s face, because the death grip the big guy’s got him in has him facing the cave wall, but he’s pretty positive he can sense him pouting. “Brat.”

They’re both quiet again, this time for a little longer. And, as much as Penn feels like he wants to fade out of existence so he doesn’t have to be _touching_ Rippen anymore, he guesses he does feel a tiny, tiny bit warmer. But there’s something still bugging him.

“Hey, uh… ” Penn clears his throat. “Rippen?”

Rippen sighs deeply. “What?”

Penn thinks for a second, then asks, “How come you didn’t let me just… freeze? I mean—“ He shrugs, glancing up at the ceiling. Those are stalactites, not stalagmites, and Penn’s always remembered, ever since the infamous ‘I’m gonna stick that stalac _tite_ where the sun don’t shine unless you get it right’ speech from Sashi. “—you’re not a hero, you don’t have to pretend to like people. And this would’ve been the perfect time to get rid of me! You wouldn’t even have to do anything, because I brought it on myself. By being stupid. Plus, you’ve probably seen me fix enough of the projector to work it out on your own.” As much as it makes Penn’s skin crawl when he thinks it, he knows Rippen can be pretty clever when he needs to be. “You probably don’t even need me anymore.” Penn can’t lift the big stuff on his own, but Rippen could definitely get around the whole ‘ferret-fingers’ issue if he needed to.

Rippen doesn’t reply at first, and then he gives a really fakey moan. “Oh, _drat_. Darn. You’re right. I’ve missed a perfect opportunity to finally rid myself of the loathsome Penn Zero. Oh, what a fool I am.” He shrugs. “Well, nothing left to do about it now.”

Penn finally manages to jerk his head over until he’s staring at Rippen. “Oh my Gosh.”

Rippen cocks an eyebrow. “What?”

Penn grins from ear to ear. “You _like_ me.”

“What?” Rippen squawks, finally loosening his grip on Penn just a tiny bit. “Oh, good work, Zero. I always knew you had the potential to drive someone insane. I’ve got to admit, I’m surprised you did it to _yourself._ Didn’t see that one coming. But I suppose even _you_ can’t stand your own company!”

“Say whatever you have to, bud,” Penn singsongs, “because you totally liiiiiiike me.”

“You’re giving me a migraine.” After he says that, Rippen drops him. Oh. Huh. Looks like he was actually holding Penn off the ground, because Penn falls flat on his butt as soon as the guy lets him go. “I’m going to start a fire. You? Well, maybe today’s the day you finally take on a well-deserved vow of silence.”

Penn snorts. “In your dreams, Rippen. Or should I say ‘nightmares’, because that’s exactly what you’d be living in if you never got to hear my sweet, sweet voice again.”

Rippen mumbles under his breath—Penn makes out some stuff like ‘insufferable’ and ‘should have let him turn into a _Zero-cicle”_ —as he bends down to start fiddling with some rocks. It feels like hours pass (seriously, Penn’s basically Captain Hypothermia over here), but he finally manages to get a spark going, and after that, a small but steady flame. “Ha!” Rippen stands up, putting his hands on his hips. “There. We can camp here for the night, and we’re not going to die. Oh! Best of all, I’m not going to have to touch your repulsive hide for the rest of my life.”

“Hey! My skin’s _baby soft_ ,” Penn grumbles. “Bitter rivals or not, pretty sure we both know there’s no point in lying about that.”

Rippen goes back to _mutter-town_ , so Penn rolls his eyes and curls up by the fire. It’s been kind of a traumatic evening, okay? Mostly traumatic because he had to touch Rippen through less than three layers of clothing, but the almost freezing to death part wasn’t great, either. Penn just hopes the MUT equipment can survive the cold, too. But he’ll freak out about that later. For now, he closes his eyes and drifts off with one last, tiny shiver.

When he wakes up, the fire’s almost died down, and the ice that coated the walls of the cave is starting to melt. In fact, the floor’s a tiny bit damp, but it’s actually pretty toasty in here. It takes Penn a little too long to realize somebody’s got their arms wrapped around him. Well, not just somebody.

Rippen.

Okay, well, _now_ he’s up. Wriggling violently, Penn tries to get out of the big lug’s grip, but it doesn’t really work. Also, Penn doesn’t really have the energy to keep struggling for long. Swallowing, he wrinkles his nose, deciding to give it one last college try. He tenses up, takes a deep breath, gets ready, and…

Doesn’t really move. It’s just… Rippen saved his life! And he didn’t even have to do it. Penn guesses the least he can do is let the guy get a full night’s sleep. Groaning, he shakes his head. So, apparently, Rippen doesn’t hate him. And Penn never really hated Rippen. Does that mean they should be cuddling together in their sleep? Of course not, that’s _super weird_ and kind of creepy. …Which makes it really freaky when Penn can’t think of a good reason to work himself free from the Christmas hams Rippen calls arms.

And even freakier when he sighs, closes his eyes, and decides to go back to sleep instead.


	6. Chapter 6

Things have finally started to settle into a sort of normalcy. They’re still strange, of course: Rippen’s been living through an extended camping trip on a planet where the butterflies wield chainsaws. But for the most part, it’s an… almost tolerable kind of strange. 

 

Perched on the side of his bed, (which he’s built in the same fashion as the old one, only with far better craftsmanship,) he works meticulously on mending his clothes. Zero’s hideous, clashing jumpsuit may be mostly intact, but Rippen’s been doing most of the physical work, and his own suit takes the brunt of the physical damage. He bends his head, patiently sewing up a gash near the breast pocket with a sliver of animal bone. 

 

It’s a rather quiet night, especially by their standards, and Rippen for one doesn’t want to do anything to spoil it.

 

“Hey, Rippen?” Zero nibbles on a piece of jerky for a second, then makes a face and decides against it. Rippen can’t blame him, they’ve only nailed the jerky thing down after three or four tries, and there’s really no way to make a giant sea cucumber palatable. 

 

“What.” 

 

“You hated Earth so much.” Zero sits down on the edge of his bed, crossing his legs in an  _ exceedingly  _ effeminate manner for a boy his age. “Like, more than Larry likes uncomfortably large-scale surprise parties for random holidays. Like the Arbor Day thing-- were you there for that?” 

 

“Yes,” Rippen drawls. “He dressed up like a sycamore and let himself into random acquaintances’ houses to sing ‘tree carols’.” It was ten at night by the time he made it to Rippens apartment, coming through one of the ventilation shafts like an opossum.

 

“Ugh, yeah. He chased me out of the bathroom with ‘O Tannenbaum’-- which I thought was kinda insensitive, that song's literally the dorky step-sibling of all the other Christmas songs.” Zero shakes his head, apparently trying to stop himself from going on another tangent. A hard battle to be fought, for sure. “Anyway, point. Missing it. What I meant to ask was, if you hated Earth that much, why do you even care about going back? I mean, no offense, but if I had the choice between living in this world that’s constantly trying to kill me and smells like a fart, and your old life… start sending my mail to fart world.” 

 

“How is that not offensive? You can’t just say ‘no offense’ and then go on with whatever nasty little thing you were going to say originally, that defeats the point.” It may be true, but Rippen still takes some offense to it. “I never said I was going back to Earth. I mean, I could just collect my things, tie off some loose ends, and move somewhere less horrible.” Rippen knows that the whole ‘secret’ of him being non-human would get out, and dealing with that on a backwards, hillbilly planet like Earth just isn’t worth the trouble. “I have nothing tethering me there. Unlike you and your…” He takes on a nasal, mocking tone with the next word. “ _ Parents _ , and your Boone, and your bloodthirsty… sidekick, girlfriend, whatever you call that maniac.” 

 

“Hey, Sashi’s cool! I’m… not denying some of her murder-y tendencies, but she’s cool!” Picking himself up on his hands, Zero whines. “And she’s not my girlfriend. We’re just friends! Friends-slash-coworkers-slash-hair-product-review-team.” 

 

“Really? I always sort of assumed…” How Zero could get a girl to tolerate him, much less admit to any kind of romantic involvement, was beyond Rippen, but it was an easy conclusion to reach just from watching those two. 

 

“No, no. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Sashi’s great! She’s the kind of girl who’s gonna make some guy-- or girl! Or… 80’s mullet dragon very happy. Actually, nope, scratch the last one. I don’t wanna picture that.” The boy shrugs, then gives a stiff laugh. “Sashi and I would totally be a  _ great _ couple. At first. Sure, we have our mutual love of old Kung Fu Movies and putting together our patented  _ The Chinchilla _ torture chamber, but if we spent enough time together, it'd all end with Boone sobbing on the floor and Sashi trying to strangle me with a mutton chop. Just like the last time we all went to brunch.” Scratching his head thoughtfully, he murmurs. “I’m not sure how I feel about a girl who could skip rope with my vocal cords if I crossed her. I’ve had… dreams about that.”

 

“That does sound like her, yes.” Rippen can picture it, flashing an unabashedly wide grin when he does. 

 

“Speaking of which, what was the deal with you and… Madam Starbanger, or whatever her name was.” Really? He’s doing that corny old routine where you pretend to forget someone’s name to emphasize how unimportant they are to you? Zero may not be above that pettiness, but it’s  _ fathoms  _ below Rippen. 

 

Folding his arms defensively, Rippen mutters. “It’s Starblaster, and you know that.” 

 

“Yeah, yeah, Starblaster, Starbanger, Starbanker,” Zero mumbles dismissively. “Anyway, is that… what you’re into? I mean, all I had to do was make eye contact once and it was like ‘wow, this woman wants to skin me alive and wear me like a mink stole!’ She’d probably harvest your soul and feed it to a... I dunno. She seems like an Aquarius, so... maybe some kind of... evil space fish-god?” Rippen... won’t argue with that. If anything, the mutual desire to mangle Zero in needlessly gruesome and unpleasant ways is sort of a plus in Rippen’s book-- and if need be, he is willing to convert to the fish-god cult. As long as it’s just a ‘holidays and funerals’ sort of thing.  

 

“First of all, it’s none of your business.” His voice harsh and irritable, Rippen lowers his hands, giving up on his work for the moment. It’s impossible to focus on a task and listen to Zero’s drivel at the same time. “Second of all… I don’t know. I thought it was sort of a given.” 

 

“What, that you’re into unstable alien overlords?” As he speaks, Zero eases down onto his stomach, bending his knees and resting his head in his hands like a caricature of a teenage girl on the phone. Not a whole lot of difference there, actually. 

 

“I don’t know, sort of? That’s just… how relationships are where I come from.” Why is Rippen explaining this to Zero? Why would he explain anything to Zero? Lack of anything better to do with his time, he guesses. “I mean, my parents met via an arranged short blade sparring match. A little old-fashioned, I know, but that’s just how old money families tend to--” 

 

“Wait, wait. Don’t just gloss over that part!” Propping himself up on his hands, Zero gawks at Rippen as though he’s an absolute maniac. “That’s just a normal thing on your planet?!” He switches to a high, mocking facsimile of Rippen’s accent, (which would be more annoying if Rippen weren’t already very accustomed to it by this point.) “Ooh, I have so much on the agenda today! I have to pick up milk, find a new dry cleaner-- oh  _ yes _ , and have a ritual knife fight with a complete stranger that might be my fiancee!” 

 

“...Well  _ anything  _ sounds absurd when you use that tone.” Rippen isn’t naive, he knows all about the silly, elaborate courtship practices of Zero’s particular incarnation of Earth. The idle pleasantries, the pointless gift-giving, the ‘will they or won’t they’ television dramas. They always end up together, why did the producers always try to convince everyone otherwise?! Rippen absolutely loathes that. “Anyway, Starblaster and I were always, uh… starcrossed lovers. Dimension-crossed, whatever.”

 

“Uh- _ huh _ .” Zero sounds like he doesn’t believe Rippen, but Rippen doesn’t have to prove anything to him. He wants to anyway, which is entirely his own decision, but he doesn’t  _ have  _ to. “Might’ve dodged a bullet there, Ol’ Rip. Somehow I get the feeling that she would’ve taken out a very expensive life insurance policy on you. You know, right before the tragic spaceship accident.” 

 

“I get it. Tactful as ever, Zero.” That would never happen, of course. Rippen and Starblaster have a sophisticated relationship that someone his age could never understand. One built on mutual respect, intense hatred for the same things, a mutual appreciation for violence and ruthlessness… alright, he can sort of see it, but there’s no way Rippen will give him the satisfaction of saying it.. He can’t count how many times that sort of thing has happened in his family alone. (His great-aunt Vrilden wasn’t known as “Vrilden the Poisoner” for nothing, after all.) 

 

“But hey, it’s not all bad. When I get back to Earth, and you go… pack up and make all the same mistakes somewhere new, there’s gonna be plenty of fish in the sea.” The boy smiles at him, for once, in a way that isn’t entirely facetious. “And you can find somebody else with stilettos, cheekbones like a marble statue, and a murderous disposition.” 

 

“That’s…” Rippen wants to keep arguing, or at least be good and sarcastic, but he just… runs out of energy for it. Instead, he sets his work aside, glances up at Zero wearily, and says, “don’t patronize me, Zero.” Just... in more of a warm way than a malicious one. 

 

* * *

 

Cupping his hands to his mouth, Zero calls out shrilly. “Come on! You’re a grown man, not a sixth-grader showering in gym for the first time.” Oh, sure. He can be casual about it, he got to go first. “Believe me, I’m not looking-- I don’t want naked old man nightmares! I’d rather see December Boone again.” 

 

“Take that back! ...And don’t mention December Boone. I just scoured that image from  _ my  _ dreams, I don’t want it coming back.” Why was he Mrs. Claus? The calendar was his idea in the first place, no one coerced him to do this! “Just stay ten… no, twenty feet from here. And watch the early geyser, you know, the one on the left, sort of shaped like a foot--” 

 

“I know the drill!” The boy huffs childishly, and Rippen rolls his eyes. Zero can afford to be reckless, he’s not the one at risk of boiling to death! These hot springs are unpredictable and dangerous: they tend to jump between ‘pleasant soaking temperature’ and ‘violent upwards explosion of scalding mineral water’ in the course of a couple of minutes. But before it does that, it’s lovely, and it’s also one of the only reliable sources of clean water in the area. Volcanic hellscapes are so dreadfully scarce on creature comforts, after all. 

 

“I’m getting in the water now!” That should go without saying, but Rippen knows better than to assume Zero knows  _ anything _ . (The boy honestly didn’t know the difference between an English-style suit jacket and an Italian-style!) Since the brat drew the long straw this time, he got the first turn, and Rippen’s still in a foul mood for it. “Well, just watch for the steam! Closely. From as far away as possible.”

 

“Yeah, sure!” Zero’s reedy voice carries gratingly well over the wide, craggy plateau. “That makes literally no sense, but I got it!” Rolling his eyes, Rippen waits for the boy to take his appropriate position by the warning geyser, also called the early geyser or the ‘time to run like a chicken with its head cut off’ geyser, the small one near the edge of the formation that starts steaming before the others… erupt. He knows he has to take advantage of what little peace he gets, using the moment’s pause to check his nails. Ugh. He wishes he hadn’t. After the last few months here, he really let them go; what used to be a meticulous, convincingly ‘human’ manicure has devolved into his natural long, straight talons. So embarrassing. 

 

Rippen tests the water gingerly with the end of his tail, glancing around self-consciously as he does so. He can all but feel the boy sniggering at him, even from thirty feet away. In the name of common decency, he’s kept his boxers, undershirt and socks-- yes, garters too, despite the relentless ridicule he’s faced as a result.  _ Someone  _ on this world has to have a sense of self-respect, after all. Easing into the water with a sigh, he looks up at the hazy, churning red sky. 

 

It’s not so bad, once he’s gotten accustomed to it. This world. It’s still pretty awful, of course, but it’s not as bad as he expected. The lack (for the most part) of dirty, screeching children is a nice touch. He folds his arms behind his head, sinking further into the steaming water and letting his tense, achy joints relax. 

 

“Geyser!” Perfect timing, there’s that screeching. Rippen scrambles out of the pool on all fours, just barely making it out in time to keep the end of his tail from getting singed. So much for relaxing.

 

“You could’ve warned me sooner!” That was a tad close for comfort! Trying to regain some shred of his dignity, Rippen picks himself up and wrings out his shirt dourly before he approaches the boy.

 

"Eh-heh,  _ clearly  _ you couldn't recognize a flawless warning system if

it singed the mold off your butt. I mean, you're still alive, and you don't look like fresh alien jerky, but nooo, Penn bad, Rippen good. That whole rhetoric's gettin' just a liiiiiittle predictable, bud.” Zero absentminded tries to shake his dense, overgrown mop dry, like some sort of curly-haired dog. 

 

Throwing his hands up in frustration, Rippen groans. “That doesn’t even make sense!” 

 

“Ugh!” Once he’s done fiddling with his repulsive mane, Zero steps closer, carrying himself like he’s the deadliest force in a place literally called The Most Dangerous World Imaginable. “When are you gonna stop being an ungrateful jerk?!” He gets right up in Rippen’s face, as if he thinks he can intimidate someone three times his size. The fact that he has to get up on his toes to see eye-to-eye sort of really drives that idea. 

 

“Me?! I’ve been watching your poorly-postured back for months! You would’ve been carried off by a giant chicken if it weren’t for me!” Rippen went out of his way to stop Zero from getting eaten, and for what? To get harassed and terrorized by his only ticket off this nightmare world? 

 

“I had a handle on that, and you know it!” Zero bristles, getting a few inches too close to his face. Not to be outdone, Rippen leans in just as close, towering over the boy threateningly. 

 

“You absolutely did not! You could’ve been torn apart, you egomaniacal little--” And just like that, Zero lunges on him. Not a sucker punch or a rabbit kick, or any of his other usual moves. 

  
He’s kissing him. Zero is holding onto both sides of his face with his baby carrot fingers and kissing Rippen. It takes Rippen several seconds just to process that, to get over the revulsion enough to comprehend that this is physically happening. When he finally does get his wits about him, he shoves Zero away roughly, knocking him flat on his back and stepping away from him warily. 

 

“W-What’re you doing?!” Rippen’s voice is weak and shaky, stunned. He feels like he’s still trying to grasp what just happened there. “You didn’t do that. You didn’t, and 

this isn’t happening.” Stammering incoherently is a perfectly natural, healthy reaction to horrifying events, right? It had better be, because that’s what Rippen is doing. “I’ve lost my mind! That’s it! The isolation and agony have finally brought me to insanity-- it was Christmas Boone that tipped the scales, I know it is!” 

 

“Are you kidding me? Just how un-genre-savvy are you? The arguing, the being stuck alone on a planet, just the two of us... It was building up to something! You can't tell me I'm the only one who felt that, because I can hear your heart speaking to me, Rippen! It's calling out a name! My name." He does this… fluttery gesture with both his hands, like an especially bad stage magician. "Zeeeeroooooo!"

 

Still stuttering, Rippen blurts out. “Are you completely insane?!” 

 

“I don’t know!” Zero keeps fidgeting, poorly trying to manage some sort of pent-up energy. “Yes? No? I mean, probably not. I've seen the school board psychologist at least once, she probably would've caught it. Although she only part time, so who knows if that even counts as a real doctor. But I'm getting off topic! Sometimes weird stuff just happens, like when you’re on the bus and some old guy falls asleep and you’re like ‘do I wake him up? Do I make sure he’s not dead? It’s seven in the morning, since when is this any of my business?’ M-My point is--” 

 

“Stop talking!” The last thing Rippen wants to hear right now is more of the boy’s rambling! He grabs his clothes, the remnants of his mech suit coveralls, and turns his back on Zero firmly. “I’m leaving. You can make it back on your own.” He’ll have to face Zero again once he gets back to the shelter, but he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it. Right now, he’d just prefer not to think about anything involving Zero, especially not today, or the kiss, or… 

 

Or how, in a very vague sort of way, he doesn’t necessarily regret it. No, he does, he regrets the action itself immensely. It’s more like… He doesn’t exactly mind how it felt.  

 

* * *

 

Rippen sticks to his side of the shack religiously. They worked out whose side was whose months ago, for the sake of mutual sanity. The dinner table, bookcase and portal work area are neutral zones. It was a fairly cordial arrangement, they both agreed, and they were rather proud of themselves and their (well,  _ Rippen’s _ ) shrewd diplomacy skills. 

 

But after the… incident, Rippen refuses to speak more than a couple of words at a time. It’s been a day since Zero sprung that attack on him, and he’s avoided the boy like the plague since then. 

 

That’s right,  _ boy _ . Rippen can’t let himself forget that. Zero is young and foolish, a hormonal animal, and things have gotten far too familiar for Rippen’s liking. The machine is still hardly more than a skeleton, the end of their nightmare is nowhere in sight. But Rippen realizes that he has to be the only sane man in this situation, and that means keeping his distance from Zero by whatever means necessary. 

 

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” The boy approaches him like a skittish dog, head down, shrunken into himself. “Will you at least stop acting like I’m radioactive? Seriously, I've seen what the radioactive stuff around here looks like. The comparison's really hurtful.” 

 

For once, Rippen doesn’t take the opportunity to start a (totally justified) fight. He doesn’t say anything, just marches outside and coldly gets back to work on trying to hoist a large piece of machinery into place. That’s the best course of action, in his opinion. Just focus on the task at hand, tune his mind out, keep his back to the brat whenever possible. The mature thing to do. 

 

“Oh, come on! We are both  _ way  _ too old for the silent treatment, pal!” Zero follows him outside, of course, because he’s never once known when to quit in his entire wretched life. “Look, I-I dunno what I was doing! I freaked out! The fumes were getting to me! Y-You know, there’s probably a reason the octoparrots don’t fly over those vents--” 

 

“Just stop. Talking.” Rippen outright snarls at Zero, turning around so fast that he makes the boy flinch slightly. Good to know he can still do that. “It never happened, understand?” 

 

“Yeah! Yeah, totally. Totally…” Twiddling his thumbs, Zero clears his throat loudly. “With you on that one.” 

 

“Good. Then we’ve got nothing to talk about.” With that, Rippen goes back to working on the device. Once this piece is in place, he’s not sure what the next step will be. But he will take advantage of any distraction he can find right now. He’ll commit himself to some pointless busywork if he has to; fix that weak spot in the shack wall, find some good vines for makeshift rope, whatever he has to do to keep himself occupied. 

 

...Because, on some level, he’s terrified. Terrified of how he can’t seem to stop himself from reliving that kiss over and over in his head whenever he gets the chance. And terrified of how much, in another context… he might’ve genuinely enjoyed it. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a little different from anything I've attempted before. This will be co-written with my beta and friend, Your_Bones, and we'll be alternating chapters and character POVs. Also, this doesn't really resemble my previous work, obviously, but I hope you all enjoy it anyway.  
> \- Kittenmittens


End file.
